*  DEC  18 1908  * 


BV  4253  .C35  1908 
Campbell,  R.  J.  1867-1956 
Thursday  mornings  at  the 
City  Temple 


THURSDAY   MORNINGS 
AT  THE  CITY  TEMPLE 


THURSDAY  MORNINGS 
AT  THE  CITY  TEMPLE 


BY    THE 

Rev.    R.    j/ CAMPBELL,    M.A. 

Minister    of  the    City    Temple^    London 

AUTHOR    OF    "THE    NEW    THEOLOGY" 


mew  l^ocH 

THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

1908 


[AU  Rights  Reserved] 


PREFACE 

The  following  sermons,  with  a  few  exceptions, 
were  preached  at  the  Thursday  mid-day  service  in 
the  City  Temple  during  the  last  twelve  months. 
The  Thursday  congregation  differs  greatly  in 
composition  from  that  of  Sunday;  it  is  made  up 
of  more  diverse  elements.  Not  a  few  of  those  who 
attend  habitually  are  out  of  touch  with  organised 
Christianity  and  never  darken  a  church  door  else- 
where than  at  the  City  Temple;  even  then  they 
confine  their  interest  to  this  one  service  in  the 
middle  of  the  day  in  the  middle  of  the  week.  City 
merchants,  young  clerks  and  shopmen,  ministers 
and  students,  social  workers  and  Labour  members 
of  Parliament  are  to  be  seen  seated  side  by  side  in 
democratic  friendliness.  There  are  not  many  work- 
ing men,  for  the  reason  that  working  men  cannot 
easily  find  their  way  to  the  heart  of  the  City  of 
London  at  twelve  o'clock  on  a  working  day;  but 
occasionally  a  railway  guard  or  engine-driver  drops 
in.  Women  come  too — some  who  have  to  get  their 
living  in  the  City  and  some  who  make  long  jour- 
neys from  outlying  suburbs.  Altogether  it  is  the 
most  interesting  congregation  in  the  world,  and 
probably  one  of  the  keenest  and  most  intelligent; 
it  is  no  slight  to  my  Sunday  congregation  to  say 
that  I  feel  more  at  ease  on  Thursday  than  I  do  in 


VI 


PREFACE 


the  more  formal  worship  of  the  Sabbath.  It  has 
been  a  custom  from  the  first  to  allow  applause  and 
interjections  on  Thursday  which,  of  course,  would 
be  out  of  place  on  Sunday;  Dr.  Parker's  practice 
in  this  respect  has  been  continued  under  my 
ministry.  It  does  no  harm — rather,  I  think,  the 
moderate  indulgence  in  the  expression  of  feeling 
by  the  congregation  helps  to  keep  preacher  and 
hearers  en  rapport  with  each  other.  The  only 
danger  associated  with  it  became  apparent  at  the 
height  of  the  New  Theology  controversy,  when  a 
few  eccentric  individuals  made  their  way  to  the 
City  Temple  Thursday  service  with  the  express 
object  of  creating  disturbance.  Happily  this 
behaviour  has  ceased  without  affecting  for  the  worse 
the  latitude  allowed  to  the  regular  congregation. 
It  may  be  that  the  character  of  the  congregation, 
and  the  nature  of  the  service,  have  influenced  to 
some  extent  the  form  as  well  as  the  matter  of  the 
sermons  contained  in  this  volume.  They  may  be 
more  colloquial  and  direct  than  is  usual  with  pulpit 
utterances.  As  most  of  them  were  preached  while 
the  New  Theology  controversy  was  raging  most 
fiercely,  the  controversial  note  will  be  detected  here 
and  there.  It  was  impossible  to  avoid  it,  although 
I  hope  it  contains  nothing  of  bitterness  and  ran- 
cour. When  the  history  of  this  period  comes  to 
be  written,  those  who  take  the  trouble  to  read  it 
will  be  amazed  at  the  extremes  to  which  serious- 
minded  people  permitted  themselves  to  go  in  their 
alarm  for  the  orthodox  positions.  No  falsehood, 
however  absurd  and  extravagant,  seems  to  have 
been  too  much  for  their  eager  credulity  to  swallow 


PREFACE  vii 

so  long  as  it  could  throw  discredit  upon  the  char- 
acter and  motives  of  the  pioneers  of  the  new  move- 
ment. Of  such  misrepresentations  the  worst  has 
been  that  which  has  credited  New  Theologians  in 
general,  and  the  minister  of  the  City  Temple  in 
particular,  with  belittling  sin.  As  a  consequence 
there  are  many  good  people  throughout  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  land  who  are  firmly  convinced 
that  I  am  a  very  wicked  person,  whose  teaching 
denies  the  reality  of  sin  and  encourages  men  to 
gratify  their  lower  nature  as  they  think  fit.  One 
might  suppose  that  common-sense  would  come  to 
the  rescue,  but,  when  a  prominent  and  much- 
respected  preacher  stands  up  before  an  enlightened 
congregation  and  tells  his  hearers  that  a  promiscu- 
ous audience  would  be  sure  to  cheer  a  man  who 
tells  them  that  sin  does  not  matter,  one  begins  to 
despair  not  only  of  common-sense  but  of  the  sense 
of  humour,  not  to  speak  of  common  honesty.  For 
there  is  no  congregation  in  the  wide  world  who 
would  cheer  any  such  sentiment,  and  no  preacher 
has  ever  existed  who  would  utter  it. 

The  truth  is,  though  it  will  be  a  long  time  before 
it  is  clearly  seen,  that  it  is  the  ordinary  Christian 
doctrine  of  sin  which  blinds  men's  eyes  to  the  real 
seriousness  of  sin.  It  is  an  immoral  doctrine.  It 
regards  sin  in  a  vague,  unreal  kind  of  way  as 
something  which  has  entered  into  human  nature 
and  corrupted  what  would  otherwise  have  been 
immaculate.  There  never  has  been  any  such  cor- 
ruption :  no  faculty  of  human  nature  is  radically 
and  essentially  bad  :  whether  it  shall  be  good  or 
bad  depends  upon  its  outcome  in  conduct  and  the 


viii  PREFACE 

character  created  by  conduct.  The  ordinary  doc- 
trine ignores  this,  and  teaches  that  a  man  can  be 
legally  justified  in  the  sight  of  God  by  an  act  of 
faith,  and  can  have  the  righteousness  of  some  one 
else  imputed  to  him.  This  is  not  only  untrue  but 
morally  mischievous,  and  one  of  its  most  evil  effects 
consists  in  the  fact  that  it  practically  ignores  sins 
of  omission.  It  is  this  which,  more  than  anything 
else,  lies  at  the  root  of  the  alienation  between  the 
churches  and  the  masses  in  every  country  of  the 
civilised  world  to-day.  This  doctrine  of  abstract 
justification  for  abstract  sin  enables  people  to  go 
on  living  comfortable,  self-satisfied  lives  while 
assuring  themselves  that  they  are  washed  in  the 
blood  of  the  Lamb  and  on  their  way  to  heaven. 
It  enables  the  religious  plutocrat  to  exploit  the 
poor  while  remaining  a  devout  believer  in  the 
efficacy  of  the  Atonement  of  Christ.  It  enables 
most  men  to  separate  their  standing  with  God 
from  their  duty  towards  their  fellows.  It  fails 
altogether  to  take  cognisance  of  the  fact  that  the 
whole  aim  and  purpose  of  the  message  of  Jesus 
was  not  to  induce  men  to  get  their  sins  forgiven 
but  to  lay  down  the  life  of  selfhood  to  take  it  again 
in  the  larger  good  of  humanity  as  a  whole.  The 
emphasis  is  entirely  different,  and  the  New 
Theology  is  an  attempt  to  recover  the  strenuous 
moral  note  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  All  through 
these  pages  it  will  be  seen  that  that  object  has  been 
kept  well  in  view. 

It  is  perhaps  too  much  to  hope  that  those  whose 
eyes  are  blinded  to  the  artificiality  of  the  traditional 
doctrine  of  sin  should  be  able  to  see  this  and  to 


PREFACE  ix 

recognise  that,  so  far  from  belittling  moral  obliga- 
tions, the  New  Theology  insists  upon  them  with  a 
clearness  and  force  which  has  long  been  wanting 
to  the  old;  but  at  least  they  might  show  a  charit- 
able spirit,  and,  if  they  continue  to  hold  to  forms 
of  stating  religious  truth  which  they  regard  as  of 
vital  importance,  they  need  not  believe  that  those 
who  challenge  them  are  necessarily  less  sincere 
and  earnest  than  themselves. 

The  advocacy  of  Socialism  by  most  of  the  ex- 
ponents of  the  New  Theology  has  helped  to  create 
additional  prejudice  against  their  theological 
views.  It  is  as  well  that  it  should  be  so,  for  no 
theology  is  worth  the  preaching  which  does  not 
find  a  social  expression.  The  combination  may 
make  progress  a  little  slower,  but  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  the  principles  enunciated  in  the  New 
Theology  is  made  all  the  more  certain  by  their 
practical  application  to  social  needs.  Whether 
theology  lives  or  dies  I  care  but  little;  it  is 
humanity  I  love  and  fain  would  serve.  The  day 
is  not  far  distant  when  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ, 
the  glad  tidings  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  will 
regain  all  its  former  power  over  the  toilers  of  the 
world,  and  inspire  them  with  faith  and  hope  in  the 
dawning  of  a  better  and  a  more  glorious  day. 

R.  J.  Campbell. 

May  19,  1908. 


CONTENTS 


PREFACE  

I.  THE   IMAGE   OF   GOD 

II.  KNOWING   GOOD   AND   EVIL      . 

III.  TRAMPLING   THE   SERPENT 

IV.  Jacob's  wrestling 

V.  THE   inner   voice      . 

VI.  THE   ROCK  AND   THE   PIT 

VII.  THE  SOCIAL  JUDGMENT       . 

VIII.  MINISTERING   THE   BREAD   OF   LIFE 

IX.  THE   HATE   THAT    IS    LOVE 

X.  THE   MASTER   ON   THE   SHORE 

.  XI.  SOWING   AND    REAPING 

XII.  CHRIST   DYING    FOR   SINNERS 

XIII.  THE   TWO   NATURES    . 

XIV.  SPIRITUAL   STRENGTH     . 
XV.  FAMINE   AND   PLENTY 

XVI.  THE   SILENCE   OF   HEAVEN 

XVII.  THE   CRYSTAL   SEA      . 

XVIII.  THE   HOLY   CITY   AND   ITS   TEMPLE 

XIX.  THE   lamb's    book   OF   LIFE 

XX.  THE   LIFE   BEYOND 

xi 


PAGE 

V 

I 

i6 

30 

44 

59 

74 

89 

106 

121 

139 

155 

174 

193 
210 
^23 
239 
254 
266 
284 
298 


THURSDAY   MORNINGS 
AT  THE  CITY  TEMPLE 

I 

THE   IMAGE  OF  GOD 

"5^  God  created  man  in  His  own  image ^  in  the 
image  of  God  created  He  him  j  male  and  female 
created  He  themP — Gen.  i.  27. 

It  should  be  fairly  clear  from  a  statement  of  this 
kind  that  the  phrase  "  in  the  image  of  God  "  means 
more  than  the  crude  anthropomorphic  idea  that 
man  is  like  his  Maker  in  the  structure  of  his 
physical  frame.  In  fact,  it  is  not  the  physical 
frame  that  the  writer  is  thinking  about,  although 
millions  have  read  this  venerable  sentence  in  that 
sense;  and  even  now  there  are  some  who  seem  to 
think  of  God  as  having  two  eyes,  two  hands,  and 
two  feet;  and  of  man  as  being  like  God  because 
similarly  furnished.  But  anthropomorphisms  of 
this  kind  have  become  repugnant  to  the  mind  of 
the  generation  in  which  we  live,  and  it  is  well  that 
it  should  be  so.  We  have,  I  hope,  for  ever  out- 
grown the  state  of  mind  which  led  mediaeval  monks 
to  represent  the  Trinity  as  three  men  standing  in 
one  pair  of  boots.  But  there  are  some  other 
anthropomorphisms  which  we  have  not  outgrown. 


2  THE    IMAGE    OF    GOD 

and  I  suppose  never  will.  Indeed,  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how  we  ever  could.  I  refer,  of  course,  to 
the  practice  of  picturing  or  describing  God  as 
having  human  attributes.  We  are  always  being 
told  of  the  absurdity  of  trying  to  represent  the 
infinite  by  means  of  finite  analogies.  But  how  can 
we  help  it?  We  can  but  read  God  through  what 
we  know  of  man.  We  can  know  nothing  else 
about  Him.  It  has  often  been  pointed  out  that 
the  most  original  artist  or  poet  can  invent  nothing 
which  does  not  already  exist  in  nature,  and  is 
familiar  to  all  who  have  eyes  to  see.  He  may 
portray  the  most  grotesque  monsters,  but  every 
one  of  them  must  have  feet,  or  wings  or  tail;  he 
cannot  invest  them  with  any  physical  attribute  the 
like  of  which  has  never  been  known  before.  He 
may  draw  monstrous  wings,  claws,  and  tails,  but 
still  they  are  wings,  claws,  and  tails  of  the  same 
order  as  those  of  the  creatures  we  see  walking  or 
flying  about  every  day.  It  is  just  the  same  in  the 
realm  of  religion.  Man  builds  his  God  from  what 
he  knows  of  himself,  only  he  tries  to  make  Him 
bigger.  Sometimes  he  succeeds  in  making  Him 
grotesque  or  even  horrible,  but  the  attributes  with 
which  he  credits  Him  are  all  the  while  his  very 
own.  In  the  breast  of  a  savage  there  is  not  much 
room  for  pity,  so  his  God  has  none.  He  observes 
the  terrible  effect  of  power  in  human  hands  or  in 
the  world  without,  so  he  promptly  thinks  of  God 
as  hurling  thunderbolts  or  tearing  mountains  from 
their  foundations,  without  much  care  as  to  what 
happens  to  the  weaker  beings  who  cower  in  fear 
before  Him.    The  God  of  the  savage,  you  see,  is 


THE    IMAGE   OF    GOD  3 

just  a  big  savage.  As  time  goes  on  men's  ideas 
of  the  Creator  expand  with  their  self-knowledge, 
and  are  as  full  of  contradictions  as  they  themselves 
are.  Man  lords  it  over  creation;  he  therefore 
imagines  that  he  represents  the  supreme  effort  of 
the  Almighty  and  the  sum  of  His  interests;  he 
cannot  easily  bring  himself  to  think  that  God  may 
have  other  interests.  He  is  conceited  even  in  his 
self-abasement;  and  when  he  acknowledges  his 
loathsomeness  before  God  he  still  imagines  that 
God  has  nothing  else  to  think  about  but  him.  He 
bullies  and  crushes  woman ;  she  is  not  made  in 
the  image  of  God,  bless  you  I  God  is  an  almighty 
He,  Who  ever  heard  of  such  a  thing  as  woman 
being  made  in  the  image  of  God?  In  fact,  is  it 
not  more  reasonable  to  suppose  that  woman's 
mischief-making  influence  has  been  responsible  for 
preventing  man  from  being  a  better  image  of  God 
than  he  actually  is? 

This  is  the  way  we  have  been  talking  for  a  good 
many  centuries,  and  we  can  hardly  be  surprised  at 
the  tendency  or  its  results.  There  is  no  mistake 
about  the  fact  that  God  has  all  along  been  thought 
of  as  the  magnified  projection  of  man,  as  man 
knows  himself.  He  has  credited  God  with  his 
own  cruelties,  whimsicalities,  pride  and  vanity, 
petty  jealousies,  and  general  unreasonableness. 
Happily  this  has  not  been  the  whole  of  the  picture. 
It  is  not  that  we  are  too  anthropomorphic  when 
we  picture  God,  but  that  we  are  not  anthropo- 
morphic enough.  Men  have  read  something  else 
in  their  own  hearts  besides  vindictiveness  and 
desire  for  the  subjection  of  others,   and  in  their 


4  THE    IMAGE    OF    GOD 

hours  of  illumination  they  have  seen  that  this,  too, 

must  belong  to  God.  Then  came  Jesus,  that 
crowning  product  of  the  long  and  painful  struggle 
of  humanity  towards  that  manhood  which  seeks 
not  its  own  good,  but  only  the  best  for  all,  and 
henceforth  they  have  thought  of  God  as  love 
revealed  in  sacrifice.  Too  often  they  have  proved 
traitor  to  this  conception ;  too  often  they  have  seen 
only  a  small  part  of  what  it  means;  but  little  by 
little,  and  age  by  age,  the  whole  civilised  world 
is  moving  on  into  the  light  that  shines  from  the 
cross  of  Jesus. 

But  how  strange  and  sad  it  is  that  even  to-day 
men  should  be  so  slow  to  see  what  is  involved  in 
the  venerable  declaration  that  God  is  love !  At  one 
time  we  speak  as  though  His  love  involved  a  kind 
of  yearning  sentimentality  over  wayward  children 
whom  He  seeks  to  recover  from  the  consequences 
of  their  folly;  in  the  next  breath  we  speak  of  Him 
as  the  implacable  guardian  of  a  righteousness 
which  can  concede  nothing  to  His  love.  Truly, 
the  contradictions  of  the  religious  mind  are  mani- 
fold as  well  as  pathetic.  The  ordinary  pre-supposi- 
tions  of  evangelical  Christianity  are  utterly  absurd, 
and  every  one  of  us  must  have  felt  their  unreality 
from  time  to  time.  The  fact  is  we  seem  to  have 
two  Gods  whom  we  call  one,  but  who  by  no  pos- 
sible stretch  of  the  imagination  could  be  combined 
in  one  personality.  The  first  is  a  sort  of  old 
woman  who  made  the  world  and  man  as  though 
He  expected  every  thing  to  go  right,  and  no  evil 
or  misery  to  mar  the  work  of  His  hands.  But  He 
laid   His   plans  so  badly   that   the  whole  scheme 


THE    IMAGE    OF    GOD  5 

went  awry,  and  heaven  has  been  in  mourning  ever 
since.  Poor  God  I  He  is  not  to  blame,  the  theo- 
logians tell  us;  it  is  wicked  man — more  especially 
woman.  God  has  done  His  best,  and  the  result 
has  been  untold  ages  of  chaos  and  unimaginable 
suffering.  All  God  can  do  is  to  provide  a  redeemer 
to  save  a  few  out  of  the  wreck,  and  to  keep  on 
pleading  with  humanity — "  O  prodigal  child,  come 
home."  You  will,  I  am  sure,  forgive  me  for  the 
seeming  irreverence  of  saying  that  God  is  a  fool. 
And  the  other  God — or  God  with  the  other  face — 
is  not  much  better.  This  other  God  has  prepared 
a  hell  for  the  poor  helpless  victims  of  what  is 
called  His  righteous  wrath.  He  has  made  it  big 
enough  to  contain  the  whole  race,  and  into  it  the 
whole  race  will  have  to  go  unless  they  repent  in 
time  and  avail  themselves  of  the  sufferings  which 
He  has  graciously  inflicted  upon  somebody  else  for 
their  benefit.  He  has  been  sitting  up  there  in 
heaven  ever  since  Creation  first  went  wrong,  brood- 
ing darkly  over  what  He  means  to  do  to  perverse 
and  rebellious  man  when  his  time  comes.  One 
would  think  that  perverse  and  rebellious  man  had 
not  had  such  a  specially  good  time  already,  and 
that,  on  the  whole,  there  was  not  much  need  of  the 
additional  torments  which  we  are  told  divine 
justice  is  preparing  for  everybody  indiscriminately. 
This  is  a  hateful  sort  of  a  God  which  the  theo- 
logians have  made  in  their  own  image,  and  I  hope 
He  will  soon  be  dead  and  buried. 

Just  face  the  facts  for  a  moment.  Has  the  God 
of  the  revival  meeting  ever  existed?  Could  He 
exist  and  yet  be   God?     Has  the   God  with   the 


6  THE    IMAGE    OF    GOD 

ready-made  hell  ever  existed?  Could  He  exist 
and  yet  be  God  ?  Put  yourself  in  the  place  of  the 
Supreme  Being  for  a  moment — if  such  a  thing  is 
remotely  conceivable.  Make  God  in  your  own 
image  so  far  as  to  imagine  yourself  endowed  with 
omnipotence  and  seated  on  the  throne  of  eternal 
glory.  Look  down  upon  the  world  as  it  now  is, 
and  what  will  you  do?  Will  the  **  prodigal-child- 
come-home  "  business  satisfy  you?  Can  you  hear 
the  sobs  of  little  children  who  are  hungry  and  cold, 
or  ill-treated,  or  dying  of  painful  disease?  Can 
you  watch  with  equanimity  yonder  strong  man 
battling  with  heavy  odds,  and  yet  feeling  the 
ground  give  way  beneath  him  as  he  struggles? 
What  is  going  to  become  of  the  wife  and  bairns 
when  that  fiend  called  consumption  or  cancer, 
which  has  been  slowly  strangling  him  for  years, 
has  tightened  its  fateful  grip  and  crushed  the 
breath  out  of  him  at  last?  Did  you  hear  that 
mother^s  shriek  of  agony  just  now  when  her  boy 
was  brought  home  dead,  mangled  to  pieces  by  the 
machinery  in  the  workshop  where  he  earned  her 
living  as  well  as  his  own  ?  Could  you  have  saved 
him — you  God,  you — or  did  you  think  it  was  not 
worth  while?  Are  you  going  to  tell  me  that  you 
are  very  sorry  for  humanity,  but  that,  of  course, 
it  has  brought  all  this  upon  itself  ?  Are  you  going 
to  maintain  that  we  have  sinned  against  you  ?  Are 
you  not  sinning  against  us  ?  What  are  you  doing, 
sitting  up  there  on  your  sapphire  throne,  and  let- 
ting people  come  into  this  torture-chamber  with 
the  glad  tidings  of  your  marvellous  love?  What 
do  you  mean  by  your  marvellous  love  ?    You  have 


THE    IMAGE    OF    GOD  7 

plenty,  and  we  are  starving  !  You  can  see,  and 
we  are  blind  I  You  have  omnipotence,  and  we  are 
crushed  by  pitiless  fate  !  And  what  about  that  hell 
of  yours?  Ought  you  not  to  be  in  it  for  awhile 
yourself  ?  Bah  !  you  are  contemptible,  you  King 
of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords,  if  you  have  nothing 
more  to  say  than  that  you  will  accept  our  peni- 
tence and  remit  our  tortures  when  we  are  dead  if 
we  only  believe  I  I  would  rather  trust  my  own 
humanity  than  your  divinity. 

This  is,  I  admit,  a  rather  startling  way  of  putting 
the  case.  Remember,  I  am  addressing  you,  you 
upon  the  throne  of  God.  What  would  you  do  if 
you  were  there?  It  is  quite  a  legitimate  thing  to 
put  you  there,  for  you  are  made  in  His  image,  you 
see.  And  so  indeed  you  are.  God  may  be  incom- 
parably wiser  and  better  than  you,  but  His  good- 
ness must  surely  be  at  least  equal  to  yours.  Can 
you  imagine  yourself,  then,  seated  on  that  sapphire 
throne  and  doing  nothing  while  the  world 
welters  in  agony  and  blood?  You  made  it,  you 
know;  you  are  responsible,  no  one  so  much  as 
you ;  and  you  can  alter  it,  for  you  are  omnipotent. 
Why  don't  you  do  it?  From  this  point  of  view  is 
not  ordinary  Christian  talk  about  God  fairly  near 
to  blasphemy?  You  can  see  how  utterly  and 
lamentably  it  breaks  down  in  the  presence  of  the 
facts  of  life  when  once  we  look  them  squarely  in 
the  face.  What  is  the  God  of  conventional  religion 
but  a  big  plutocrat  who  talks  of  the  wickedness 
of  the  victims  He  crushes  under  the  chariot-wheels 
of  His  success  ?  Imagine  a  man  in  the  place  of 
God.     Imagine  him  so  wise  that  he  never  makes 


8  THE    IMAGE    OF   GOD 

a  mistake,  so  rich  that  all  the  wealth  of  the  world 
is  as  a  drop  in  the  ocean  to  his  abundance,  so 
strong  that  he  can  carry  the  whole  universe  in  the 
palm  of  his  hand.  Then  imagine  this  big,  strong, 
wealthy  man  talking  about  his  own  goodness  and 
contrasting  it  with  the  wickedness  of  the  little 
human  beings  who,  he  says,  have  been  sinning 
against  him.  Would  you  not  instantly  question 
his  assumption  of  superiority  and  even  his  right 
to  call  the  world  wicked  ?  Would  you  not  ask  him 
how  we  are  to  judge  of  his  goodness?  He  is 
superior  to  all  the  ills  of  life;  he  knows  nothing 
of  the  force  of  temptation ;  he  is  not  subject  to  the 
delusions  of  ordinary  human  ignorance.  And  yet 
he  sits  in  his  heaven,  enthroned  far  above  all  reach  of 
evil,  and  allows  the  awful  torrent  of  human  anguish 
and  iniquity  to  pour  on  in  its  dreadful  course. 
I  say,  imagine  a  man  endowed  with  divine  power 
and  behaving  like  this.  Pick  up  any  ordinary 
broker  from  the  Stock  Exchange,  and  seat  him  on 
the  eternal  throne,  and  imagine  him  taking  this 
point  of  view  about  himself  in  relation  to  humanity 
as  a  whole.  What  would  you  call  him  ?  I  think, 
perhaps,  you  would  call  him  a  scoundrel  or  a 
maniac,  but  you  would  neither  love  nor  adore  him. 
You  would  make  no  pretence  about  the  matter.  If 
you  had  a  spark  of  manliness  in  you  you  would 
shake  your  fist  in  his  face  and  tell  him  that  in  your 
helplessness  you  were  greater  than  he.  And  yet, 
remember,  the  God  whom  many  of  us  devoutly 
worship  is  neither  more  nor  less  to  our  imagination 
than  a  kind  of  big  man  whom  we  credit  with  con- 
duct which  would  disgrace  the  ordinary  man  of 


THE    IMAGE    OF    GOD  9 

our  everyday  acquaintance.  Is  it  not  obvious? 
The  moment  we  try  to  put  ourselves  in  the  place 
of  God  we  begin  to  see  how  impossible  are  some 
of  our  most  familiar  conceptions  of  His  nature 
and  doings.  Why,  we  are  better  than  the  God  in 
whom  we  profess  to  believe. 

No,  the  truth  is  that  neither  the  sentimental  God 
of  the  revival  meeting  nor  the  God  with  the  ready- 
made  hell  would  be  tolerable  to  us  for  a  moment 
if  we  were  really  to  put  one  of  ourselves  in  His  place. 
The  worst  of  our  anthropomorphic  religion  is  that 
we  have  all  along  been  picturing  a  man  on  the 
throne  of  the  universe,  but  a  wrong-headed  kind 
of  a  man,  a  man  who  does  not  behave  quite  so 
well  as  we  should  in  his  place  if  we  followed  the 
promptings  of  our  better  nature.  If  we  must  make 
God  in  the  image  of  man,  why  cannot  we  make 
Him  as  noble  and  truly  human  as  man  can  show 
himself  to  be  at  his  best?  You  may  say  that  that 
is  precisely  what  we  do  when  we  call  Him  a  God 
of  love.  But  you  are  wrong;  we  do  not.  The  love 
of  God  must  mean  something  different  from  what 
the  ordinary  Christian  says  it  means,  or  else  this 
sad  and  weary  world  would  be  different  from  what 
it  is.  It  is,  I  verily  believe,  a  dim  perception  of 
this  fact  which  has  led  men  to  try  to  apologise 
for  God,  as  it  were,  by  throwing  all  the  blame  of 
the  world's  woe  upon  the  shoulders  of  humanity. 
When  a  man  ceases  to  try  to  do  this,  he  gives  up 
his  God  of  love.  There  are  thousands  of  men  in 
this  and  every  other  civilised  country  to-day  who 
have  given  up  believing  in  God,  because  they  feel 
that   if  there  were  such   a   God   as   the   Christian 


10  THE    IMAGE    OF   GOD 

believes  in  He  would  not  tolerate  such  a  world  as 
this  for  a  single  hour.  There,  then,  is  your 
dilemma.  It  is  absolutely  impossible  to  believe  in 
the  God  of  ordinary  Christian  dogma.  Is  it,  then, 
impossible  to  believe  in  any  Supreme  Being  to 
whom  the  name  of  love  could  fitly  be  applied?  I 
think  not,  but  we  shall  have  to  read  more  into  that 
word  "  love  "  than  most  people  ever  seem  to  think 
of  doing.  There  is  no  need  to  shrink  from  the 
anthropomorphic  argument  if  only  we  are  willing 
to  give  it  scope  enough.  Imagine  a  man  upon  the 
throne  of  the  universe,  if  you  like,  but  credit  him 
with  the  best  of  which  earthly  humanity  has  yet 
shown  itself  capable.  Do  not  go  back  on  that; 
hold  firmly  to  it,  permit  no  half-measures.  Believe 
it  to  be  incredible  that  God — or  the  universal  order 
— could  produce  in  your  mother  that  which  is 
superior  to  itself.  God's  excellence  may  be  some- 
thing infinitely  greater  than  frail  humanity  has  yet 
produced,  but  we  cannot  be  deceived  in  thinking 
that  that  which  is  morally  beautiful  in  man  must 
be  worthy  even  of  God.  You  may  call  this  beg- 
ging the  question,  but,  if  so,  you  are  welcome  to 
think  so.  I  absolutely  refuse  to  believe  that  the 
universe  which  could  produce  the  heart  and  mind 
of  Jesus  is  not  the  outcome  of  a  heart  and  mind  at 
least  as  great  and  noble.  I  would  willingly  rest 
my  whole  faith  on  that  one  proposition.  I  face 
life  in  the  strength  of  it.  God  may  be  inconceiv- 
ably better  than  my  best,  but  He  must  not  be 
worse.  I  am  even  willing  to  admit  that  good  and 
evil  are  relative  terms  which  will  lose  their  signifi- 
cance when  we  come  to  experience  infinite  blessed- 


THE    IMAGE    OF    GOD  ii 

ness,  but  it  is  safe  to  affirm  that  God  is  all  we 
mean  by  good,  and  infinitely  more.  Cling  fast  to 
that,  and  it  will  bear  you  through  most  of  the  ills 
that  can  assail  the  soul  in  this  world  or  the  next. 
There  is  a  profound  wisdom,  and  a  bold  and  rever- 
ent worship,  in  the  lines  which  supplied  George 
MacDonald  with  the  inspiration  for  one  of  his 
best-known  books  : 

Here  lie  I,  Martin  Elginbrod ; 
Have  mercy  on  my  soul,  Lord  God, 
As  I  would  do,  if  I  were  God, 
And  Thou  wert  Martin  Elginbrod. 

But  there  is  a  position  even  beyond  this  to  which 
I  wish  we  people  of  the  Western  world  could  better 
accustom  ourselves.  It  is  this  :  To  be  made  in  the 
image  of  God  involves  far  more  than  most  of  us 
in  our  present  state  of  probation  ever  dream  of.  If 
we  only  knew  all  that  it  means  to  say  that  man 
is  made  in  the  image  of  God  we  should  cease  to 
be  perplexed  by  the  age-long  problem  of  pain,  and 
sorrow,  and  sin.  So  far  from  seeing  in  these 
things  an  indictment  of  the  love  of  God  we  should 
see  in  them  the  demonstration  of  it.  Love  is  a  far 
greater  thing  than  the  finite  mind  can  grasp;  it 
is  not  merely  a  part  of  life  but  the  whole  of  it.  I 
seem  to  be  speaking  in  riddles,  but  wait  a  moment. 
Ask  yourself  what  it  is  that  by  general  consent 
we  feel  to  be  greatest  and  most  divine  in  man — that 
is,  most  worthy  of  God,  if  God  there  be — and  you 
do  not  need  to  wait  long  for  the  answer.  It  is 
that  awe-inspiring  something  which  outshines  all 
merely  moral  considerations  in  obedience  to  the 
inward  impulse  to  realise  all  life  as  one.     When 


12  THE    IMAGE    OF    GOD 

ever  you  meet  it  you  have  no  doubt  about  it.  It 
may  be  allied  to  a  religious  profession  or  it  may 
not,  but  we  know  it  at  once  for  the  deepest  thing 
in  our  nature.  We  may  fairly  say  that  all  history 
is  a  commentary  upon  it,  and  that  its  presence  is 
the  one  thing  which  renders  human  life  worthy  of 
an  immortal  destiny.  You  know  well  enough  what 
I  mean.  I  mean  that  in  you  which  at  some  great 
moment  makes  you  willing  and  ready  to  accept 
annihilation  for  the  sake  of  the  larger  life  of 
which  yours  is  but  a  part.  Something  tells  you, 
preacher  or  no  preacher,  that  this  is  somehow  the 
thing  for  you  to  do.  You  are  not  always  like  it; 
in  fact,  you  are  very  seldom  like  it;  but  you  are 
never  in  any  danger  of  mistaking  it  when  it  comes. 
When  the  enemy  is  at  the  gate,  and  some  child  of 
the  home-land  accepts  torture  and  death  rather 
than  betray  his  country,  we  make  songs  about  it 
and  tell  the  story  to  our  children  and  our  chil- 
dren's children.  When  plague  and  pestilence  are 
desolating  whole  communities  we  honour  and 
revere  the  men  and  women  who  go  to  meet  death 
with  a  smile  in  the  cause  of  struggling  life.  Even 
when  the  great  deed  has  nothing  dramatic  or  out- 
wardly impressive  to  recommend  it,  or  when  it 
is  a  deed  which  covers  the  whole  life,  we  feel  just 
the  same  about  it  if  we  are  able  to  see  clearly  and 
truly  what  that  deed  or  life  really  is.  During  the 
earlier  part  of  my  ministry  in  Brighton  I  was  once 
called  upon  to  remonstrate  with  a  poor  woman  whose 
besetting  sin  was  drink.  Inquiry  revealed  where 
the  temptation  had  come  from,  but  that  is  a  ques- 
tion into  which  I  need  not  enter.     Months  after- 


THE    IMAGE    OF    GOD  13 

wards  I  heard  that  the  poor  creature  was  dead.  She 
had  died  of  pneumonia  contracted  while  walking 
around  her  room  with  her  baby  on  a  cold  winter's 
night.  She  had  stripped  herself  to  keep  the  child 
warm,  and  her  constitution,  already  enfeebled  by 
poverty  and  foolish  habits,  had  succumbed  to  the 
chill  which  followed.  The  friend  who  told  me  the 
circumstances  added  that  the  most  affecting  thing 
about  that  poor  woman's  death  was  her  solicitude 
about  the  children  she  was  leaving.  All  thought 
about  her  own  fate  in  the  next  world  was  com- 
pletely absent.  Neither  heaven  nor  hell  entered 
into  her  calculation.  The  only  thing  she  was 
afraid  of  was  leaving  her  children  to  be  knocked 
about  in  this  world  without  a  protector.  Only  two 
or  three  people  at  most  would  ever  hear  of  the 
manner  of  that  woman's  death  or  realise  the  great- 
ness of  soul  which  shone  forth  therein.  But  do  we 
not  feel  much  the  same  about  it  as  we  do  about  the 
soldier  who  dies  at  his  post  or  the  fireman  who 
loses  his  life  in  the  effort  to  save  a  child  from  a 
burning  building?  In  this  poor,  ignorant,  even 
debased  human  being  something  was  displayed 
which  helps  us  to  feel  that  humanity  is  not  entirely 
of  the  dust.  Nobody  would  quarrel  with  you  for 
saying  that.  My  point  is  that,  although  we  may 
be  blind  to  the  greatness  of  a  life  or  a  deed  while  it 
is  being  enacted  in  our  midst,  we  always  reverence 
it  when  we  see  it  for  what  it  is.  The  world  always 
has  done  so,  and  always  will;  it  is  the  one  thing 
that  stirs  the  soul  in  reading  history  or  in  viewing 
life  as  it  unfolds  itself  before  our  eyes.  In  fact, 
our    blindness    in    particular    instances    does    not 


14  THE    IMAGE    OF    GOD 

matter  much ;  the  splendour  of  the  life  or  the  deed 
may  even  be  enhanced  by  the  blindness  of  the 
world  as  to  its  true  nature.  If  we  only  see  the 
thing  itself  we  are  nobler  by  the  vision,  even 
though  we  may  discern  it  in  but  one  instance  out 
of  a  thousand.  We  may  see  it  in  one  and  ignore 
it  in  another,  but  if  we  can  see  it  all  we  bow  before 
it  and  worship.  You  know  now  what  I  am  talk- 
ing about,  don't  you  ?  I  am  talking  about  the 
cross.  I  am  talking  about  that  which  has  given 
the  name  of  Jesus  its  power  over  men's  hearts.  A 
Christ  without  the  cross  would  be  no  Christ.  We 
may  go  farther  and  say,  a  God  without  the  cross 
would  be  no  God;  man  without  the  cross  would 
not  be  man.  What  we  are  witnessing  in  this 
strange,  sad,  earthly  life  of  ours,  with  its  impene- 
trable mysteries  and  sharp  limitations,  is  the  forth- 
coming of  the  God  in  man  by  means  of  the  cross. 
Why,  you  know  it  is  so,  every  one  of  you.  The 
seeming  evil  of  life  is  but  the  means  towards  that 
grand  end,  and  the  gain  is  worth  the  price.  The 
very  thing  which  at  times  staggers  us  and  makes 
us  feel  that  there  can  be  no  God  is  the  thing  that 
makes  the  God  in  ourselves  a  reality.  Made  in  the 
image  of  God  !  I  should  "think  so.  What  is  God  ? 
He  is  that  which  shows  itself  in  man  when  he  lays 
down  his  life  at  the  call  of  duty  or  what  is  beyond 
and  above  duty.  Yes,  I  have  seen  God  on  His 
sapphire  throne.  I  saw  Him  in  that  mother  of  the 
slums;  I  see  Him  in  you  as  you  rise  triumphant 
over  that  which  is  base  and  sordid  in  your  en- 
deavour to  serve  that  which  is  holy  and  true.  I 
have  seen   Him   in   that  fleeting  look  which  can 


THE    IMAGE    OF    GOD  15 

make  a  coarse  face  beautiful  when  the  soul  is  stirred 
to  noble  aim  and  high  endeavour.  I  have  seen 
His  glory  in  the  light  that  sometimes  flames  out 
of  the  midnight  blackness  of  human  cruelty  and 
depravity.  Life  has  no  other  meaning  than  this; 
it  is  the  manifestation  of  God  in  man.  Evil  will 
not  last  for  ever ;  it  is  the  cross  whereby  we  mount 
the  throne  of  divine  glory.  Every  victory  over 
evil  is  a  manifestation  of  divine  love.  No  lesser 
manifestation  would  be  worthy  of  the  name  of  love ; 
and  from  this  point  of  view  all  life  is  love — that  is, 
the  self-giving  of  God.  Can  you  see  it?  I  would 
not  exchange  the  knowledge  that  it  brings  for  all 
that  heaven  could  show  apart  from  it.  As  the  poet 
makes  the  man  say  to  the  angel : 

All  your  beauty  cannot  win 

Truth  we  learn  in  pain  and  sighs  ; 

You  can  never  enter  in 
To  the  circle  of  the  wise. 

They  are  but  the  slaves  of  light 
Who  have  never  known  the  gloom, 

And  between  the  dark  and  bright 
Willed  in  freedom  their  own  doom. 

Brother  pilgrims  through  the  darkness,  let  this 
truth  sustain  you  in  your  conflicts  or  your  passive 
endurance.  It  is  the  gospel  at  the  heart  of  every 
creed;  it  is  all  life  has  to  teach.  Reveal  the  image 
of  God,  the  real  God  who  suffers  and  achieves  in 
you.  Say  to  yourselves  as  you  go  to  meet  the  task 
that  waits  for  you  outside  the  door,  To-day  the 
eternal  light  must  shine  through  me;  to-day  God 
shall  be  glorified  in  what  these  feeble  hands  can 
do;  to-day,  to-morrow,  and  to  all  eternity  what  is 
born  of  lore  shall  live  in  the  life  that  never  dies. 


II 

KNOWING  GOOD   AND   EVIL 

"  Your  eyes  shall  be  opened^  and  ye  shall  be  as  gods^ 
knowing  good  and  evil.^^ — Gen.  iii.  5. 

The  story  of  the  temptation  and  fall  of  primitive 
man,  as  given  in  this  chapter,  is  one  of  considera- 
able  interest  and  no  little  difficulty.  It  presents 
problems  which  up  to  now  have  proved  to  be 
practically  insoluble.  In  its  present  literary  form 
it  is  of  comparatively  late  date;  but  a  far  more 
important  question  is  that  of  the  nature  of  the 
different  elements  contained  or  presumed  in  the 
narrative  as  it  now  stands.  One  of  the  most  per- 
plexing of  these  elements  is  that  which  forms  our 
text:  '*  Ye  shall  be  as  gods,  knowing  good  and 
evil."  If  the  mind  of  the  average  Bible  reader 
were  not  so  uncritical,  and  if  it  were  not  so  com- 
monly taken  for  granted  that  the  story  of  the  Fall, 
as  contained  in  the  book  of  Genesis,  is  exactly  the 
same  as  the  modern  doctrine  of  the  Fall,  this 
sentence  would  be  sure  to  arrest  attention  at  once. 
There  are  some  startling  things  here.  Some  primi- 
tive beliefs  are  taken  fo^r  granted  which  are  far 
removed  from  our  ordinary  way  of  looking  at  the 
relations  of  God  and  man  to-day.  Let  us  look  into 
this  question  for  a  moment. 

16 


KNOWING    GOOD    AND    EVIL  17 

According  to  the  legend  as  it  stands,  Adam  and 
Eve,  the  primitive  man  and  the  primitive  woman 
of  tradition,  lived  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  in  a  state 
of  complete  innocence.  They  were  forbidden  to 
eat  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge,  and  were 
told  by  the  Almighty  that  disobedience  in  this 
respect  would  mean  immediate  death.  Then  the 
serpent  comes  along — how  this  serpent  comes  by 
his  wisdom  is  not  explained — and  tells  them  that 
God  has  been  deceiving  them  :  they  will  not  die, 
and  that  God  knows  they  will  not  die;  that,  in 
fact,  His  real  motive  in  forbidding  them  to  eat  of 
this  particular  tree  is  that  He  knows  they  will 
become  as  wise  as  Himself.  The  peculiar  use  of 
the  plural  number — *'gods,"  instead  of  *' God  " 
— ought  to  be  noted  here,  for  it  is  not  without 
significance.  It  seems  to  me  that  we  have  here  a 
distinct  reference  to  that  belief  in  the  jealousy  of 
the  gods  so  characteristic  of  many  ancient  peoples. 
I  suppose  you  all  know  what  I  mean.  Readers  of 
Greek  literature  will  not  need  to  be  reminded  of  the 
frequent  recurrence  of  references  to  the  jealousy 
which  the  gods  were  supposed  to  feel  lest  humanity 
should  aspire  to  their  wisdom  and  strength.  It 
was  held  that  all  human  misfortunes  were  traceable 
to  this  source.  So  soon  as  a  man  became  wiser, 
braver,  and  more  fortunate  than  his  fellows,  he  was 
sure  to  excite  the  jealousy  of  the  gods,  who  forth- 
with proceeded  to  work  him  harm.  The  legend 
concerning  Prometheus  is  of  this  order.  Prome- 
theus was  punished  for  having  conferred  a  boon 
upon  humanity  by  stealing  fire  from  heaven  where- 
with to  increase  their  power  over  natural  forces; 
2 


i8         KNOWING    GOOD    AND    EVIL 

certainly  no  greater  step  forward  in  the  history  of 
the  race  has  ever  been  taken  than  that  which 
followed  from  the  discovery  of  the  use  of  fire. 
But,  according  to  the  Greek  form  of  the  myth,  the 
gods  were  so  exasperated  with  Prometheus  for 
having  conferred  this  boon  upon  mankind  that  he 
was  chained  to  a  rock  for  the  offence,  and  his  flesh 
was  torn  by  vultures.  Here  in  this  Genesis  story 
we  have  a  Semitic  version  of  the  attitude  of  the 
gods  towards  any  aspirations  of  mankind  in  the 
direction  of  divine  wisdom  and  power.  The  use  of 
the  plural  number  shows  that  in  its  original  form 
the  story  was  polytheistic.  Here  we  have  the  gods 
telling  primitive  man  that  he  must  not  seek  to  know 
too  much,  or  he  will  be  destroyed.  When  he  yields 
to  the  temptation,  however,  he  is  not  destroyed, 
but  all  kinds  of  evil  results  pursue  him.  Another 
interesting  point  is  the  reason  given  for  driving 
him  out  of  Eden.  "  Behold  the  man  is  become 
as  one  of  uSj  to  know  good  and  evil  " — plural 
number  again,  you  see.  *'  And  now,  lest  he  put 
forth  his  hand,  and  take  also  of  the  tree  of  life,  and 
eat  and  live  for  ever  :  therefore  the  Lord  God  sent 
him  forth  from  the  Garden  of  Eden,  to  till  the 
ground  from  whence  he  was  taken."  Here  we  are 
distinctly  told  that  the  motive  for  sending  man 
away  from  his  pleasant  surroundings  was  that  he 
might  possibly  aspire  to  the  immortality  of  a  divine 
being,  and  this  the  gods  were  resolved  not  to  per- 
mit. The  two  trees — the  tree  of  knowledge  and 
the  tree  of  life  respectively — are  plainly  intended  as 
the  symbols  of  an  experience  wherein  man  becomes 
a  sharer  in  the  privileges  of  deity.    Who  the  serpent 


KNOWING    GOOD    AND    EVIL         19 

was  it  is  impossible  to  say.  He  does  not  answer 
either  to  the  dragons  of  other  Semitic  myths  or  to 
the  Satan  of  later  Jewish  religion.  It  is  clear, 
at  any  rate,  that  his  appearance  at  this  stage 
is  out  of  ill-will  to  the  deity,  whom  he  wishes 
to  vex  by  tempting  mankind  to  a  dangerous  dis- 
obedience. 

In  this  brief  examination  of  the  story  presumed 
in  our  text  I  have  necessarily  had  to  leave  some 
interesting  questions  on  one  side,  as  having  nothing 
to  do  with  the  subject  I  wish  to  discuss  this  morn- 
ing. But  sufficient  has  been  said,  I  trust,  to  show 
that  the  original  motif  of  this  peculiar  saying  was 
not  of  the  most  exalted  order.  Probably  this 
sentence  is  one  of  the  oldest  parts  of  the  literary 
whole  which  constitutes  this  chapter.  It  assumes 
a  plurality  of  divine  beings,  a  sort  of  cosmic  aristo- 
cracy who  are  most  unwilling  that  man  should 
enter  into  their  fellow^ship  and  share  their  privileges. 
Hence,  when  he  takes  one  step  forward  they  pre- 
vent him  from  taking  a  second  by  expelling  him 
from  the  conditions  where  it  would  be  possible. 
The  threat  that  he  would  surely  die  was  a  piece  of 
deceit  such  as  those  ancient  deities  were  quite 
capable  of,  and  was  merely  intended  to  deter  him 
from  attaining  to  a  knowledge  which  might  make 
him  dangerous  to  them.  There  was  no  question 
of  right  and  wrong  about  the  matter.  It  was  very 
much  like  the  behaviour  of  a  civilised  race  to  a 
subject  one,  such  as  was  exemplified  in  the  history 
of  the  South  African  Chartered  Company  when  the 
natives  were  warned  to  let  the  telegraph  wires 
alone.     The  method  adopted  in  giving  the  warning 


20         KNOWING    GOOD    AND   EVIL 

was  to  make  a  few  of  them  take  hold  of  the  wires  to 
which  an  electric  battery  was  attached.  As  a  result, 
of  course,  they  received  a  severe  shock,  and  were 
forthwith  informed  that  this  was  what  would  always 
happen  if  they  touched  the  telegraph  wires,  only  that 
the  shock  would  be  more  severe,  and  would  be  cer- 
tain to  cause  a  sudden  and  painful  death.  I  think  the 
parallel  is  obvious  in  the  case  of  this  Genesis  story, 
or  that  part  of  it,  at  any  rate,  which  forms  my 
text.  Probably  by  this  time  the  eyes  of  South 
African  natives  are  so  far  opened  that  they  know 
what  telegraph  wires  are  for,  and  why  the  white 
men  wished  them  to  let  them  alone. 

I  have  felt  it  imperative  to  scrutinise  the  principal 
ideas  thus  presumed  in  the  text,  because  it  is  not 
honest  to  read  into  any  Scripture  passage  what  is 
not  there.  If  this  were  all  my  text  had  to  tell  us, 
I  should  not  care  to  pursue  the  subject  farther, 
although  most  of  you  will  admit  that  it  is  at  least 
interesting.  But  the  most  striking  thing  about  it 
is  the  tempter's  statement  of  the  reason  why  it  was 
worth  while  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  knowledge.  He 
says  the  gods  know  good  and  evil,  and  that  man 
can  enter  into  their  knowledge.  Now  what  can 
this  mean  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  we  have  in  this 
expression  an  example  of  profound  psychological 
insight.  The  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  is  a 
higher  state  of  consciousness  than  that  of  the 
beings  which  are  below  humanity  in  the  scale  of 
existence.  Moreover,  the  desire  to  possess  or  in- 
crease this  knowledge  is  the  root  motive  of  every 
act  of  moral  transgression.  I  wish  to  examine 
these  two  allied  propositions  before  proceeding  to 


KNOWING   GOOD   AND    EVIL         21 

apply    to    our    own    experience    the    lesson    they 
contain. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  I  remark  that  the  know- 
ledge of  good  and  evil  is  a  higher  stage  of  con- 
sciousness than  that  possessed  by  the  lower 
creation ;  when  man  first  arrived  at  this  altitude  he 
may  be  said  to  have  crossed  the  threshold  between 
the  brute  and  the  god.  The  insight  displayed  in 
this  passage  is  therefore  truly  marvellous,  so  early 
in  the  history  of  man's  thought  about  himself.  I 
do  not  wish  to  read  too  much  into  it.  It  is  possible 
that  by  the  phrase  ''good  and  evil"  the  writer 
only  means  "the  secrets  of  existence."  He  may 
mean  the  command  of  resources,  the  power  to  dis- 
tinguish between  what  is  beneficial  and  what  is  not. 
The  primitive  man  of  Genesis  is  shown  to  be  a 
helpless  dependent  upon  the  bounty  of  the  gods; 
the  gods  themselves  are  masters  of  all  the  forces  of 
earth  and  air  and  sea ;  they  know  how  to  use  them, 
and  what  will  hurt  and  what  will  not.  I  am  afraid 
this  is  all  we  can  say  with  certainty  as  to  the  mean- 
ing of  this  statement,  but  I  think  we  are  justified 
in  inferring  a  little  more.  I  will  tell  you  why  I 
think  so.  Early  as  this  sentence  may  be,  it  is  not 
so  early  as  the  wisdom  of  the  East,  which  has 
always  insisted  that  the  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil,  in  the  sense  of  choosing  between  a  higher  and 
a  lower,  was  a  stage  intermediate  between  simple 
consciousness  and  divine  consciousness.  Some 
forms  of  this  teaching  have  been  wholly  pessimistic, 
and  have  amounted  to  the  declaration  that  it  would 
have  been  better  never  to  have  possessed  this  know- 
ledge at  all;    but  the  best  of  them  have  held  that 


22         KNOWING    GOOD    AND    EVIL 

it  must  be  accepted  in  order  to  be  transcended; 
that  is,  we  must  know  good  and  evil  in  order  to 
arrive  at  a  realisation  of  that  state  of  being  wherein 
is  neither  good  nor  evil,  but  only  the  unbroken 
blessedness  of  the  eternal  life.  So  ancient  is  this 
teaching,  extending  apparently  from  far  Japan  to 
the  shores  of  Greece,  that  I  cannot  but  feel  that  it 
has  had  some  influence  upon  the  wording  of  my 
text.  To  know  good  and  evil,  then,  means  to  have 
arrived  at  that  stage  of  self-consciousness  wherein 
it  becomes  possible  to  see  and  choose  a  higher  in 
the  presence  of  a  lower.  There  must  have  come  a 
day  in  the  history  of  the  world  when  the  first  glim- 
merings of  a  conscience  became  apparent  in  that 
part  of  God's  creation  which,  in  virtue  of  that  very 
discovery,  became  something  which  the  rest  of 
creation  was  not.  It  is  impossible  to  say  when  that 
hour  arrived.  We  cannot  say  even  now  when  it 
first  arrives  in  the  dawning  consciousness  of  a  child. 
But  it  did  arrive;  and  because  of  it  man  began  to 
know  himself,  and  to  know  himself  potentially 
divine.  He  saw  before  him  the  triple  ideal  of  the 
true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good.  He  did  not  see, 
and  does  not  yet  see,  how  far  this  trinity  in  unity 
can  take  him ;  but  he  knows  he  ought  to  seek  it, 
and  he  knows  that  to  turn  his  back  upon  it  is  to 
disobey  his  own  highest. 

But  this  knowledge  has  been  bought  at  a  heavy 
price.  When  the  good  to  be  sought  first  opened 
before  him,  the  bad  to  be  avoided  opened  also  with 
sinister  force.  The  beasts  of  the  field  know  nothing 
of  duty,  and  hence  they  know  nothing  of  guilt; 
they  are  naked  and  unashamed.     It  is  far  otherwise 


KNOWING    GOOD    AND    EVIL         23 

with  man.  He  knows  something  which  his  brother 
creatures  do  not  know,  and  hence  he  can  not  only 
rise  higher  but  sink  lower  than  they.  Compare, 
for  instance,  the  trickeries  and  lies  of  some  fashion- 
able society  lady,  who  degrades  her  body  to  pay 
her  bridge  debts,  with  the  unconscious  dignity  of 
her  Newfoundland  dog;  he  knows  nothing  of  foul- 
ness and  deceit.  Or  compare  the  meanness  and 
craftiness  of  the  bookmaker,  who  ensnares  unwary 
youth,  with  the  simple  innocence  of  the  horse  he 
drives  or  makes  bets  upon ;  the  horse  knows 
nothing  of  the  unholy  triumph  of  getting  the  better 
of  a  fellow-creature.  I  do  not  care  to  enter  too 
narrowly  into  the  question  thus  indicated.  We 
are  now  face  to  face  with  the  old  antinomy  between 
philosophy  and  religion.  Philosophy  can  find 
little  scope  for  human  freedom ;  it  tends  to  throw 
all  the  responsibility  for  human  wrong-doing  upon 
God,  and  thus  to  eliminate  all  sense  of  moral  re- 
sponsibility. Broadly  speaking,  this  is  the  con- 
clusion to  which  philosophy,  hand  in  hand  with 
science,  is  taking  us  at  the  present  time,  and  on 
purely  intellectual  grounds  I  can  see  no  escape  from 
it.  The  more  closely  we  examine  into  the  nature 
of  a  moral  choice  the  more  the  reality  of  that  choice 
tends  to  disappear.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
religion,  hand  in  hand  with  morality,  insists  just 
as  strenuously  on  man's  power  of  self-direction  and 
self-control,  and  his  responsibility  for  the  use  of 
that  power.  This  is  a  position  with  which  we  can- 
not afford  to  trifle,  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  there 
seems  little  or  no  disposition  to  trifle  with  it.  We 
all  know  well  enough  that  the  very  foundations  of 


24         KNOWING    GOOD    AND    EVIL 

our  social  existence  rest  upon  belief  in  the  reality 
of  human  freedom  and  the  power  of  distinguishing 
between  right  and  wrong.  You  will  hear  theo- 
logians cry  out  from  time  to  time  that  So-and-so  is 
destroying  the  sanctions  of  morality.  Do  not  be 
afraid.  No  one  can  destroy  the  sanctions  of 
morality;  the  good  sense  of  the  general  public, 
religious  and  non-religious,  will  take  care  of  that. 
But,  all  the  same,  we  have  to  admit  that  antinomy 
in  thought.  On  the  one  hand  we  have  the  absolute 
sovereignty  of  God;  on  the  other,  the  freedom  of 
the  human  will.  It  is  difficult  to  see,  too,  how 
there  can  be  any  real  knowledge  of  good  which 
does  not  imply  knowledge  of  evil.  How  can  the 
real  nature  of  any  positive  excellence  be  understood 
except  in  the  presence  of  its  opposite?  It  seems, 
therefore,  that  any  advance  from  simple  conscious- 
ness to  a  knowledge  of  God  must  lie  along  the 
pathway  of  the  choice  between  good  and  evil.  I  do 
not  shrink  from  affirming  this,  for  it  will  hold  good 
whatever  view  we  take  of  the  relations  of  God  and 
the  soul. 

We  come  now  to  the  further  question  of  the  root 
motive  of  sin.  Is  it  not  always  the  desire  to  know, 
to  gather  into  one's  self  and  possess  that  which 
lies  beyond  the  present  threshold  of  experience? 
If  you  will  interrogate  some  young  lad  who  has 
gone  wrong  amid  the  temptations  of  a  great  city 
you  will  find  that  what  first  lured  him  on  was  the 
desire  to  enter  untrodden  regions  and  taste  for- 
bidden fruit.  Watch  your  own  children,  boy  or 
girl,  and  you  will  learn  a  good  deal  that  seems  to 
have  been  present  to  the  mind  of  the  waiter  of  this 


KNOWING    GOOD    AND    EVIL         25 

Old  Testament  passage.  The  thing  that  fascinates 
is  the  unknown;  the  lust  of  the  flesh,  the  lust  of 
the  eye,  and  the  pride  of  life  begin  in  curiosity. 
I  have  heard  of  a  man  who  had  tried  every  vice 
and  every  form  of  excess  usual  with  voluptuaries, 
and  pronounced  them  rotten.  He  had  plunged 
into  them,  he  said,  because  of  the  fascination  of 
wanting  to  know  what  they  were  like;  the  only 
result  was  nausea  and  remorse.  It  may  be  con- 
tended that  there  are  some  forms  of  sin  which  can- 
not be  thus  explained,  and  I  quite  agree.  Mean- 
ness and  treachery,  for  instance,  are  not  a  rush  for 
the  tree  of  knowledge,  but  they  are  part  of  the 
result  of  eating  the  forbidden  fruit.  Such  sins  as 
meanness  and  treachery  always  appear  as  the  serv- 
ants of  some  deeper  motive.  When  a  man  cheats 
at  cards  or  slanders  a  friend,  he  does  so  because  of 
some  course  of  action  he  has  already  adopted;  he 
has  been  in  search  of  something  just  beyond  his 
reach,  and  these  are  means  towards  helping  him 
to  obtain  it.  Thus  when  Adam  had  eaten  his 
apple  he  tried  to  shift  the  blame  upon  Eve,  as  he 
has  been  doing  ever  since.  The  man  who  first 
wrote  that  story  was  a  pretty  shrewd  observer 
of  human  nature.  You  smile,  but  I  am  perfectly 
serious. 

Adam's  cowardly  lie  about  Eve  is  still  being  told 
in  the  wickedly  unjust  social  custom  which  ruins 
a  woman  for  an  offence  from  which  the  greater 
sinner  goes  scot  free;  it  is  just  the  same  old  lie. 
But  I  must  not  allow  you  to  lose  sight  of  my  im- 
mediate point,  which  is  that  all  sin  begins  in  the 
desire  to  know,  to  possess,   to  absorb  into  one's 


26         KNOWING    GOOD    AND    EVIL 

consciousness  that  which  lies  beyond  it.     All  forms 
of  sin  owe  their  being  ultimately  to  this. 

Now  there  is  nothing  intrinsically  blameworthy 
about  this  impulse;  blameworthiness  begins  with 
the  mode  of  its  exercise.  Curiosity  has  been  the 
compelling  motive  in  every  great  discovery  which 
has  yet  been  made  for  the  benefit  of  the  human 
race.  An  expedition  is  just  being  got  ready  for 
the  purpose  of  attempting  to  reach  the  South  Pole ; 
we  should  not  say  that  those  who  have  organised 
it  deserve  censure  on  account  of  the  sinfulness  of 
their  action;  quite  the  contrary.  No;  the  sinful- 
ness of  sin  arises  from  the  fact  that  it  is  an  attempt 
to  separate  between  one  man's  good  and  another's; 
there  is  no  sin  which  is  not  this.  It  is  the  desire 
to  subordinate  the  larger  to  the  lesser,  the  higher 
to  the  lower.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  sin  which 
the  sinner  does  not  know  to  be  sin.  When 
preachers  and  theologians  assert  the  contrary,  they 
are  just  talking  nonsense.  The  essence  of  sin,  I 
repeat,  is  the  attempt  to  separate  between  the  good 
of  the  individual  and  that  of  the  race.  Nothing  is 
good  for  me  which  does  not  imply  larger  life  for 
you,  and  nothing  is  good  for  you  which  means 
deprivation  and  loss  to  me;  our  goal  is  one.  At 
our  present  stage  of  self-consciousness  it  necessarily 
seems  that  my  interest  is  separable  from  yours  and 
from  the  whole,  but  it  is  not  so,  and  the  saints  and 
seers  of  the  race  have  always  been  telling  us  that 
it  is  not  so.  The  way  to  arrive  at  the  highest  life, 
which  is  full  knowledge  of  God,  is  to  be  willing  to 
surrender  the  gratification  of  the  finite  self,  and  to 
live  as  though  the  only  self  were  God.     The  man 


KNOWING    GOOD   AND    EVIL         27 

who  is  doing  this  crucifies  the  poor  little  finite  ego 
at  every  turn,  and  yet  he  does  so  because  he  sees 
that  self-service  in  the  lower  sense  bars  the  way  to 
that  self-realisation  which  consists  in  living  the 
life  of  love,  which  is  the  life  of  God.  This  is  the 
life  that  Jesus  lived,  and  therefore,  in  a  world  where 
other  people  were  not  living  it,  He  had  to  be  nailed 
to  a  cross;  but  then — here  is  the  wonderful  thing 
about  this  life — he  who  lives  it  would  rather  be 
nailed  to  a  cross  than  be  without  it,  and  while  any 
selfishness  or  unhappiness  remains  in  the  world  he 
will  gladly  and  willingly  go  on  accepting  the  cross 
until  there  is  nothing  left  but  love. 

I  am  afraid  some  of  you  will  feel  that  this  is  a 
statement  which  needs  expansion,  and  some  time 
I  shall  hope  to  return  to  it.  For  the  moment,  what 
I  want  you  to  see  is  that  the  tempter  in  my  text  and 
in  human  experience  everywhere  only  speaks  the 
literal  truth.  The  sinner  does  become  wise,  with 
a  terrible  wisdom ;  he  does  know  good  and  evil, 
but  it  is  from  the  under  side.  The  attempt  to 
capture  life  and  subordinate  it  to  the  lesser  self  is 
inevitably  to  lose  it.  The  eating  of  the  forbidden 
fruit  means  sooner  or  later  that  the  eyes  are  opened 
to  the  worthlessness  of  the  gratification  thus  at- 
tained, and  the  result  is  shame  and  remorse.  There 
is  no  lasting  joy  except  the  joy  of  love.  No  sinful 
deed  ever  achieves  what  it  seeks.  As  George  Eliot 
puts  it:  "It  was  not  worth  doing  wrong  for; 
nothing  ever  is  in  this  world." 

Among  those  who  hear  me  this  morning  there 
may  be  some  who  need  this  word  of  warning. 
Before  you  stretches  the  great  unknown,  and  your 


28         KNOWING    GOOD    AND    EVIL 

soul  is  stretching  out  towards  it.  There  is  nothing 
wrong  in  that;  but  what  will  you  do  with  it? 
Some  of  you  are  absorbed  in  the  rush  for  com- 
mercial success.  Well,  be  it  so,  but  understand  it 
for  what  it  is;  this  is  only  one  mode  in  which  the 
soul  reaches  out  towards  the  infinite.  It  is  not 
money  you  are  after,  even  though  you  think  it  is; 
it  is  self-expression.  You  want  to  expand  your 
consciousness  of  life,  to  reach  forth  and  gather  in 
from  the  boundless  beyond.  If  it  were  not  for 
that  longing  there  w^ould  never  be  any  millionaires, 
neither  would  there  be  any  bankrupts.  But  if  in 
this  form  of  self-expression  you  mistake  the  means 
for  the  end,  and  lose  the  soul  amid  its  own 
machinery,  you  will  learn  a  lesson  indeed,  but  it 
will  be  a  sad  onet  later  on  you  will  come  to  know 
the  good  you  have  missed  and  the  evil  you  have 
gained.  Still  more,  if  on  the  road  to  material  suc- 
cess you  crush  down  a  weaker  brother,  and  continue 
your  advance  over  his  prostrate  fortunes,  or  if  you 
enrich  yourself  at  the  expense  of  the  community 
whence  your  resources  are  drawn,  you  will  live  to 
rue  the  day.  The  hour  of  disenchantment  will 
surely  come,  and  you  will  know  the  emptiness  and 
the  sadness  of  the  life  that  is  lived  for  self  alone. 
No  life  is  worth  the  living,  no  joy  is  worth  the 
having,  that  is  not  love.  Each  for  all  and  all  for 
each  is  the  spiritual  law  that  binds  the  universe 
together  and  makes  it  a  universe  at  all.  Disobey 
that  law,  and  you  become  wise  with  the  wisdom 
that  knows  good  and  evil;  but  the  former  has 
eluded  your  grasp,  and  left  only  the  sadness  of 
disillusionment  behind. 


KNOWING    GOOD    AND    EVIL         29 

It  is  the  same  with  every  form  of  sin  in  which 
you  try  to  indulge.  The  tempter  (your  baser  self) 
always  says:  "You  shall  know  what  you  yearn 
to  know,"  and  he  is  right.  But  to  come  out  on 
the  under  side  of  that  knowledge  is  hell.  You  love 
a  woman;  have  you  sinned  for  her?  Then  you 
have  lost  her.  You  want  to  sit  on  the  seats  of  the 
mighty;  have  you  broken  a  heart  to  get  there? 
Then  your  coronation  is  damnation.  You  want 
the  glittering  bauble  of  worldly  success.  Well, 
you  can  have  it,  but  if  it  represents  only  what  you 
have  stolen  from  humanity,  instead  of  what  you 
have  ministered  to  it  of  more  abundant  life,  it  will 
be  to  you  the  messenger  of  death.  If  at  this 
moment  you  are  meditating  some  deed  that  means 
snatching  at  the  good  of  another — some  lie  that  is 
murder,  some  smile  that  is  the  Judas  kiss,  some 
honeyed  word  that  is  the  tongue  of  the  serpent — 
beware  !  You  know  not  what  you  do.  You  are 
telling  God  that  you  believe  His  universe  is  ordered 
so  that  the  lie  can  prosper  as  well  as  the  truth. 
Pause,  ere  it  be  too  late,  and  you  have  to  know  in 
sorrow  the  wisdom  of  God  concerning  the  wages  of 
sin.  For,  believe  me,  there  is  but  one  way  to 
eternal  bliss,  and  that  is  the  laying  down  of  life 
that  all  mav  live. 


Ill 

TRAMPLING  THE   SERPENT 

"  /  will  put  enfnily  between  thee  and  the  womany  and 
between  thy  seed  and  her  seed ;  it  shall  bruise  thy  head, 
and  thou  shall  bruise  his  heeW — Gen.  iii.  15. 

This  part  of  the  Bible  is  not  preached  from  so 
much  as  it  used  to  be,  because,  I  suppose,  both 
preachers  and  hearers  have  become  somewhat  be- 
wildered as  to  what  they  ought  to  think  about  it. 
Time  was  when  the  difficulty  did  not  exist  to  the 
devout  Christian.  He  was  brought  up  to  believe 
that  the  Garden  of  Eden  was  an  historical  spot,  just 
as  real  as,  say,  Hyde  Park,  and  that  Adam  and 
Eve  were  personalities  just  as  distinctive  as  his  own 
grandparents,  and  with  similar  failings.  The  exe- 
gesis of  my  text  would  not  have  troubled  him  at  all. 
He  would  have  taken  for  granted  that  the  serpent 
was  the  devil ;  that  the  seed  of  the  woman  here 
alluded  to  was  Jesus  Christ;  and  that  the  bruising 
which  was  to  take  place  would  be  that  which  was 
finally  accomplished  at  Calvary.  Jesus  bruised  the 
devil  by  redeeming  mankind  from  his  fateful  grip, 
and  the  devil  bruised  Jesus  by  rendering  His  suffer- 
ing and  death  a  necessity.  Any  other  explanation 
than  this  of  the  passage  which  forms  our  text  would 
have  been  deemed  unthinkable. 

30 


TRAMPLING   THE    SERPENT  31 

But  for  some  time  past  this  explanation  has 
ceased  to  satisfy  intelligent  people,  no  matter  how 
orthodox  they  may  think  themselves  to  be  in  other 
respects.  So  the  subject  simply  disappears  from 
the  pulpit.  Preachers  let  it  alone.  And  yet  there 
is  no  need  that  they  should ;  if  the  cruder  explana- 
tion has  ceased  to  be  possible,  it  has  only  made  way 
for  a  larger  and  truer.  In  what  I  am  now  about  to 
say,  therefore,  I  wish  you  to  understand  that  my 
main  object  is  to  bring  out  and  apply  to  present- 
day  conditions  the  essential  spiritual  truth  under- 
lying this  and  all  such-like  Bible  narratives.  If 
there  were  no  spiritual  truth  here;  if  it  were  simply 
a  meaningless  fable,  I  should  say  so  with  perfect 
frankness,  for  I  do  not  believe  there  is  anything 
whatever  to  be  gained  by  pretending  to  see  what 
does  not  exist.  But  there  is  a  great  truth  here,  a 
truth  which  was  really  present  to  the  minds  of  those 
who  originally  told  the  story,  as  well  as  those  who 
made  literature  of  it.  The  critical  problem  is  a  very 
complicated  one,  and  is  still  to  a  large  extent  un- 
solved, but  we  can  get  near  enough  to  a  solution 
to  be  able  to  see  the  main  ideas  declared  in  our 
text.  Legend  or  legends  and  literature,  the  story 
in  its  present  form  draws  upon  two  main  sources — 
the  Babylonian  and  the  North  Arabian,  and  these 
two  were  originally  so  different  that  they  have  pro- 
jected inconsistent  elements  into  the  Genesis  ver- 
sion. Probably,  if  we  could  get  back  far  enough 
into  the  dim  regions  of  Semitic  legend  and  folk- 
lore, we  should  find  that  the  serpent  was  at  one 
time  the  personification  of  wisdom,  and  at  another 
the  personification  of  evil.    In  one  part  of  this  nar- 


32  TRAMPLING   THE    SERPENT 

rative  it  appears  as  the  well-meaning  friend  of  man, 
whereas  in  our  text  it  is  shown  as  a  malignant 
being  who  had  tempted  him  to  his  ruin.  In  the 
earliest  versions  of  the  Creation  myth — that  is,  ages 
before  the  book  of  Genesis  was  written — the  reason 
given  for  the  expulsion  of  man  from  the  garden  of 
happiness  was  not  his  disobedience  so  much  as  the 
fear  of  the  divine  beings  that  he  would  aspire  to 
the  fellowship  of  the  immortals.  Those  of  you  who 
are  familiar  with  Greek  mythology  will  know  what 
a  large  place  this  notion  occupies  therein ;  it  was  a 
favourite  idea  of  the  Greek  tragedians  to  ascribe 
human  misfortunes  to  the  ''jealousy  of  the  gods." 
You  can  easily  find  traces  of  this  same  idea  in  the 
story  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  as  given  in  the  book 
of  Genesis.  I  do  not  mean  that  the  educated  men 
who  finally  turned  it  into  literature  were  really 
influenced  by  such  a  belief,  but  their  modification 
of  the  original  legend  still  preserves  features  which 
show  where  it  came  from.  Thus  we  are  told  that 
the  gods — for  the  word  is  in  the  plural  number — 
warn  man  that  if  he  eats  of  the  tree  of  knowledge 
he  will  surely  die,  whereas  he  does  not  die. 
The  serpent — that  is,  wisdom  personified — tells 
him  this,  and  tells  him,  too,  the  real  reason  why 
the  gods  are  deceiving  him ;  it  is  because  they  are 
afraid  he  will  find  out  the  way  to  gain  immortal- 
ity and  thus  become  dangerous.  This  motive 
is  actually  confessed  in  the  context  by  the  gods 
themselves:  "And  the  Lord  God  said,  Behold, 
the  man  is  become  as  one  of  us  (observe  the  plural 
pronoun)  to  know  good  and  evil ;  and  now,  lest  he 
put  forth  his  hand,  and  take  also  of  the  tree  of  life, 


TRAMPLING    THE    SERPENT  33 

and  eat,  and  live  for  ever  " — so  they  drove  out  the 
man.  It  was  for  opening  man's  eyes  apparently, 
that  the  serpent  was  cursed,  not  because  it  had 
done  anything  really  wicked.  Please  understand 
that  I  am  here  speaking  of  the  original  sources  of 
the  Creation  myth,  and  not  of  the  purpose  with 
which  it  is  employed  here. 

But  another  element  is  introduced  by  regarding 
the  serpent  as  the  personification  of  evil,  the  baser 
or  earthly  part  of  man,  the  degrading  animal  pas- 
sions. And  this  element  is  just  as  real  as  the  one 
we  have  been  examining,  although  it  comes  from 
quite  a  different  source,  as  I  said  a  few  minutes 
ago.  The  insight  of  this  later  writer  here  becomes 
quite  remarkable  when  we  remember  that  this  great 
saying  was  written  thousands  of  years  ago.  The 
thought  is  this  :  A  day  arrives  when  man  becomes 
aware  of  a  dual  nature  within  him,  a  divine  and 
an  earthly,  one  in  which  he  shares  with  the  gods, 
and  one  which  is  his  in  common  with  the  brutes. 
But  he  pays  a  heavy  price  for  his  self-knowledge. 
Henceforth  he  is  at  war  with  himself,  the  God  and 
the  serpent  within  him  fighting  for  mastery.  On 
the  whole,  victory  rests  with  the  former,  and  in  the 
end  will  do  so  completely,  but  it  will  not  be  a  scath- 
less  triumph ;  the  God  will  crush  the  serpent's  head, 
but  the  latter  will  wound  the  heel  that  tramples  it. 

This  is  quite  a  felicitous  figure  to  express  what 
every  man  and  woman  in  this  place  knows  to  be 
absolutely  true,  and  I  could  not  imagine  a  much 
better  way  of  putting  the  case.  The  whole  upward 
progress  of  humanity  towards  the  stature  of  the 
superman  has  been  a  continuous  bruising  of  the 
3 


34         TRAMPLING   THE    SERPENT 

serpent's  head ;  but  in  the  process  we  have  had  to 
suffer ;  the  heel  that  tramples  down  the  evil  has  to 
feel  the  serpent's  fangs.  I  am  not  going  to  enter 
upon  a  dissertation  as  to  the  reason  why  such  a 
sinister  conflict  should  ever  have  been  necessary; 
I  have  done  that  before  and  may  do  it  again ;  but 
all  I  want  to  do  this  morning  is  to  show  that  all 
true  manhood  is  compelled  to  fight  the  battle  with 
the  serpent  which  has  given  us  our  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil,  and  yet  has  power  to  wound  and 
sting.  It  is  better  to  have  the  conflict  than  be  with- 
out the  knowledge.  Sad  and  terrible  though  human 
history  may  be,  it  becomes  sublime  when  we  see  it 
from  this  point  of  view.  We  stand  where  we  do 
to-day  because  of  those  sons  of  the  morning  who  in 
all  generations  past  have  set  their  foot  firmly  on 
the  serpent's  head,  regardless  of  the  pain  and 
danger  to  themselves ;  and  we,  too,  in  our  turn,  are 
called  upon  to  face  the  same  dread  monster  on 
behalf  of  generations  yet  unborn.    It  is  ours  to 

Tread  all  the  powers  of  darkness  down 
And  win  the  well-fought  day. 

You  will  at  once  recognise  the  close  resemblance 
between  the  figure  in  which  this  truth  is  declared  in 
our  text,  and  the  hosts  of  legends  about  typical 
heroes  of  antiquity  who  stand  for  the  God-like 
achievements  of  humanity  itself.  Such  are  the 
infant  Hercules  strangling  the  vipers;  St.  George, 
the  supposed  patron  saint  of  England,  destroying 
the  dragon — the  effigy  of  which  you  will  see  on  every 
gold  coin  of  the  realm ;  and  Perseus  coming  to  the 
rescue  of  Andromeda,  by  killing  the  reptile  which 


TRAMPLING   THE    SERPENT  35 

was  to  devour  her.  These  resemblances  are  too 
close  to  be  accidental.  They  show  that  the  main  idea 
of  the  age-long  conflict  between  the  spiritual  and 
the  material,  the  pure  and  the  foul,  the  God  and 
the  brute,  has  always  been  quite  naturally  symbol- 
ised as  the  struggle  of  humanity  against  the  ser- 
pent. It  is  not  for  nothing  either  that  Christian 
devotion  has  usually  associated  our  text  with  the 
name  of  Jesus,  for  on  the  field  of  human  history 
that  great  name  sums  up  all  that  has  ever  been 
attempted  or  attained  in  the  overthrow  of  evil  and 
the  triumph  of  good.  Of  course  it  may  plausibly 
be  contended  that  Jesus  is  only  an  abstraction,  an 
ideal,  a  creation  of  the  Christian  consciousness,  and 
that,  if  He  ever  lived  at  all,  the  real  Jesus  must  have 
been  far  inferior  to  the  estimate  formed  of  Him  by 
posterity. 

Perhaps  most  of  you  have  read  Clough's  poem, 
''  The  Shadow,"  in  which  this  idea  is  worked  out 
in  form  of  a  satire.  He  imagines  the  spirit  of 
Jesus  as  sitting  upon  the  tomb  wherein  His  body 
has  long  since  mouldered  into  dust,  and  listening 
with  amazement  to  what  the  long  succession  of 
cunning  ecclesiastics  and  superstitious  devotees  are 
saying  about  Him  : 

I  dreamed  a  dream  :  I  dreamt  that  I  espied, 

Upon  a  stone  that  was  not  rolled  aside, 

A  shadow  sit  upon  a  grave — a  shade.     .     .     . 

"The  night  is  past,  the  morning  is  at  hand, 

And  I  must  in  my  proper  semblance  stand, 

Appear  brief  space  and  vanish — Hsten,  this  is  true, 

I  am  that  Jesus  whom  they  slew."     .     .     . 

And  shadows  dim,  I  dreamed,  the  dead  apostles  came, 

And  bent  their  heads  for  sorrow  and  for  shame — 

Sorrow  for  their  great  loss,  and  shame 

For  what  they  did  in  that  vain  name. 


36         TRAMPLING   THE    SERPENT 

And  the  Shade  answered,  "  What  ye  say  I  know  not ; 

But  it  is  true 

I  am  that  Jesus  whom  they  slew, 

Whom  ye  have  preached,  but  in  what  way  I  know  not." 

How  far  the  poet  means  this  view  to  be  taken 
seriously  it  would  be  impossible  to  say,  for  the 
poem  was  left  incomplete,  but  it  represents  what  a 
fairly  large  number  of  people  have  feared  was  the 
truth  about  Jesus.  He  lived.  He  fought  His 
fight,  made  His  niistakes  like  other  men,  and  died 
His  death  never  to  rise  again  except  in  human 
imagination.  A  terrible  conclusion  this  !  and  one 
that  turns  this  earth  of  ours  into  a  charnel-house 
wherein  life  sports  with  death,  and  noble  and 
ignoble  alike  become  the  food  of  worms.  Some 
time  ago  a  badly  written  book  called  When  it  was 
Dark  attempted  to  show  that  if  it  could  be  proved 
beyond  dispute  that  Jesus  had  never  conquered 
death,  all  the  baser  passions  of  humanity  would  in- 
stantly be  let  loose  in  a  frenzy  of  despair.  That  is 
sheer  nonsense,  and  even  worse ;  but  if  it  be  main- 
tained that  Jesus  never  deserved  the  reverence  He 
has  received  for  nineteen  centuries,  then  we  should 
one  and  all  have  to  admit  that  it  was  the  serpent 
who  won  in  the  conflict  he  provoked,  and  that 
everything  great  and  noble  which  has  since  been 
wrought  in  His  name  will  perish  like  the  baseless 
fabric  of  a  dream.  But  it  is  unthinkable.  Jesus 
cannot  be  less  than  His  contemporaries  believed 
Him  to  be ;  like  all  great  souls,  He  must  be  more. 
Dogmatic  systems  represent  a  vast  amount  of 
labour  and  ingenuity;  but  they  can  do  nothing  to 
commend  Jesus  to  the  world,  any  more  than  sceptic- 


TRAMPLING   THE    SERPENT         37 

ism  can  do  anything  to  discredit  Him.     His  cre- 
dentials are  His  acliievements.     I  am  not  interested 
to  prove  whether  He  was  sinless  or  not,  and  I  do 
not  think  He  was  sinless  or  not,  and  I  do  not  think 
He  would  have  been  interested  in  the  matter  either  ; 
the  very  question  is  artificial.     I  do  not  care  three 
straws  about  His  supposed  flawlessness ;  for,  at  the 
best,  that  sort  of  test  is  only  negative,  and,  to  be 
worth    anything,    a    character    must    be    positive. 
Probably  the  most  contemptible  character  in  this 
church  this  morning  is  the  man  who  is  too  colour- 
less to  have  either  big  virtues  or  big  vices.     But 
I  will  tell  you  what  I  do  care  about.     I  care  about 
this  fact  that  this  Jesus  was  an  explosive  force. 
His  Titanic   moral  energy  was   thrown   upon   the 
side  of  weakness  and  suffering  in  their  conflict  with 
strength  and  selfishness  in  alliance  with  venomous 
hypocrisy.   The  reason  He  has  lived  is  that  with  all 
the  intensity  of  His  mighty  soul  He  declined  all 
compromise  and  braved  the  worst  in  the  service  of 
what  He  thought  to  be  the  true  and  good.     And 
posterity   has   vindicated   His   insight.     We   have 
come  now  to  see  that  the  highest  kind  of  life  is  that 
in  which  the  unit  lives  only  in  and  for  the  whole. 
Slowly  and  painfully  is  the  lesson  being  learned, 
but  when  it  is  learned  the  triumph  of  Jesus  will 
be  complete.      He  set  his  foot  upon  the  serpent's 
neck,  and,  although  at  the  moment  it  seemed  strong 
enough  to  destroy  Him,  He  has  kept  it  there,  and 
will  keep  it  there  until  its  poisonous  breath  has  no 
longer  any  power  to  blight  and  injure  the  human 
soul.     It  struck  its  fangs  into  Him— of  course  it 
did;  what  else  was  to  be  expected?     But  it  could 


38  TRAMPLING    THE    SERPENT 

not  destroy  him.  The  turning-point  of  human 
history  was  the  execution  of  Jesus  on  Calvary,  not 
because  it  did  anything  to  appease  the  wrath  of 
God  on  account  of  human  sin — puerile  nonsense  ! — 
but  because  it  was  the  deepest  w^ound  ever  inflicted 
by  the  serpent  of  human  baseness  upon  the  spirit 
of  human  nobleness,  and  because  from  that  moment 
the  God  in  humanity  has  shown  itself  able  to  crush 
the  serpent's  head.  The  world  has  never  looked 
back  since,  no,  not  even  in  its  darkest  hours.  The 
most  convinced  materialist  would  surely  admit  that 
the  issue  fought  out  at  Calvary  was  the  issue 
between  truth  and  falsehood,  right  and  wrong, 
heaven  and  hell,  and  that  the  former  won  the  day 
by  seeming  to  lose  it. 

Here  is  the  same  issue  before  us  still.  Do  not 
imagine  for  a  moment  that  it  is  a  simple  one. 
Nothing  is  easier  than  to  talk  about  right  and 
wrong,  the  true  and  the  false,  as  though  they  were 
always  easily  distinguishable  and  absolutely  differ- 
ent on  the  outside.  They  are  nothing  of  the  kind. 
If  they  were,  duty  would  be  a  good  deal  simpler 
than  it  is  in  practice.  The  difference  between  right 
and  wrong  is  only  the  difference  between  a  higher 
and  a  lower  self-interest.  The  self-interest  which 
refuses  to  consider  one's  own  individual  life  as 
having  either  meaning  or  value  apart  from  the  life  of 
the  whole  is  that  for  which  Jesus  stood,  and  which, 
in  our  heart  of  hearts,  every  man  of  us  knows  and 
feels  to  be  the  highest  form  of  self-expression.  It  is 
not  a  question  of  the  rightness  or  wrongness  of 
deeds  but  of  attitude,  and  we  know^  quite  well  when 
we  are  taking  the  true  attitude,  although  w^e  may 


TRAMPLING   THE    SERPENT  39 

not  be  quite  sure  of  the  wisdom  of  the  particular 
deed  in  which  the  attitude  is  declared.  You  are  all 
conscious  of  that  tendency  in  your  nature  which 
makes  you  wish  to  score  off  your  neighbour,  or 
take  advantage  of  weakness,  or  gratify  the  lusts  of 
the  flesh,  but  perhaps  you  have  never  asked  your- 
selves why  these  things  are  wrong.  They  are 
wrong,  because  they  represent  the  tendency  to  in- 
dulge the  self  apart  from  or  at  the  expense  of  the 
common  good.  The  particular  way  in  which  this 
is  done  is  a  secondary  matter;  what  matters  is  that 
you  should  succumb  to  a  tendency  which,  if  vic- 
torious, would  break  up  human  society  itself,  and 
make  even  the  survival  of  individuality  impossible. 
On  the  other  hand,  you  do  not  need  to  be  told  that, 
whether  your  deeds  are  wise  or  not,  their  nobleness 
consists  in  the  fact  that  they  are  the  expression  of 
the  impulse  to  find  the  soul  by  losing  it  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  universal  life.  To  put  the  case  in  para- 
doxical fashion — there  is  no  individuality  worth  the 
having  which  does  not  imply  the  surrender  of  indi- 
viduality; or,  to  put  it  another  way,  no  man  can 
find  himself  until  he  has  discovered  that  he  has  no 
self  but  mankind.  This  was  the  whole  secret  of  the 
life  of  Jesus,  and  this,  too,  is  the  divine  something 
which  thrills  our  souls  in  the  presence  of  anything 
really  great  and  noble  in  human  character  and 
achievement.  When  we  think  of  things  in  this  way 
how  inexpressibly  silly  it  seems  to  talk  of  this  or 
that  human  peccadillo  as  being  terrible  in  the  sight 
of  God ! 

Cardinal   Newman   once   declared   that   he   con- 
sidered it  preferable  to  undergo  ages  of  the  most 


40         TRAMPLING   THE    SERPENT 

inconceivable  torment  rather  than  commit  one  venial 
sin.  Honestly,  I  do  not  know  what  he  meant — 
although  I  have  heard  smaller  minds  talking  the 
same  way — unless  it  were  that  in  the  back  of  his 
mind  was  the  principle  that  underlies  my  text, 
namely,  that  a  man  is  either  living  for  the  lower 
or  for  the  higher  self,  either  for  the  unit  or  for  the 
whole,  either  for  his  own  wretched  personality  or 
for  the  eternal  God.  If  the  former,  the  serpent  has 
won  without  a  contest ;  if  the  latter  it  may  still  have 
power  to  strike  its  fangs  into  the  heel  that  tramples 
it,  in  which  case  suffering  becomes  a  mark  of  the 
triumph  of  him  who  endures. 

Let  me  appeal  in  closing  to  all  who  hear  me  this 
morning  to  read  their  own  life  truly.  I  want  you 
to  realise  that  a  man  may  fancy  himself  a  good 
Christian,  and  yet  be  no  follower  of  Jesus.  You 
may  have  a  mean  soul,  and  yet  be  immaculate  in 
the  eyes  of  the  world.  You  may  never  in  all  your 
life  have  done  a  deed  of  truth  that  really  cost  you 
anything.  You  may  say  you  are  depending  on  the 
finished  work  of  Jesus,  and  have  no  merits  of  your 
own.  Quite  so;  but  the  finished  work  of  Jesus  will 
have  no  relation  whatever  to  such  a  soul  as  yours, 
unless  it  produces  merits  of  your  own.  If  you 
really  belong  to  His  side  of  things,  you  will  be 
shedding  your  blood  every  day  of  your  life  instead 
of  keeping  your  feet  out  of  the  range  of  the  ser- 
pent's fangs.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  some 
men  who  have  been  down  in  the  mud  a  good  many 
times,  and  who  are  anything  but  immaculate,  who 
stand  nearer  to  the  heart  of  things  than  negative 
respectability  can  ever  hope  to  come.     I  mean  the 


TRAMPLING   THE    SERPENT         41 

men  who  have  taken  risks  and  defied  odds  in  a 
cause  or  causes  in  which  petty  self-interest  has  been 
lost  sight  of.  I  mean  the  men  who  don't  bother 
their  heads  as  to  whether  they  are  going  to  heaven 
or  not,  and  do  not  even  stop  to  remind  themselves 
that  they  are  deserving  of  credit  and  admiration  for 
having  torn  the  mask  from  the  face  of  selfishness 
enthroned  as  righteousness.  Be  you  aware,  fellow- 
citizens  of  London  and  England,  that  there  is 
hardly  any  evil  worth  fighting  which  unblushingly 
owns  up  to  what  it  is;  the  worst  evils  of  all,  and 
the  hardest  to  overthrow,  are  those  which  masquer- 
ade as  virtues  or  necessities.  The  serpent  bites 
hardest  when  the  cause  he  champions  is  called 
good,  and  the  heel  that  tramples  it  is  called  evil. 
Moreover — and  here  I  am  liable  to  be  misunder- 
stood but  must  take  the  risk  of  it — I  do  not  believe 
Almighty  God  cares  in  the  least  about  what  is 
originally  termed  sinlessness.  I  wish  the  word  and 
all  it  stands  for  could  be  relegated  to  the  limbo  of 
forgotten  things.  It  is  a  positive  nuisance.  It 
throws  men  off  the  track  of  the  true  meaning  of 
life.  You  may  wash  all  the  colour  out  of  a  gar- 
ment and  thus  render  it  useless  either  for  beauty 
or  utility,  whereas,  even  with  a  few  stains  on  it, 
it  may  possess  both  real  value  and  importance. 
What  God  requires  is  greatness  of  soul,  that  in- 
effable quality  of  mind  and  heart  which  enables  a 
man  to  rise  above  mean  motives  and  foul  desires, 
and  boldly  put  his  foot  upon  their  neck  wherever 
he  finds  them.  It  is  not  even  a  question  of  success 
but  of  the  nobleness  of  the  effort.  There  are  men 
in  this  church  this  morning,  I  doubt  not,  so  heavily 


42         TRAMPLING   THE    SERPENT 

weighted  in  their  private  life,  and  even  in  their 
inmost  soul,  that  they  can  hardly  dare  to  hope  for 
victory  over  the  dragon  they  have  been  lighting  for 
twenty  years.  Well,  be  it  so,  but  how  hard  have 
you  fought  ?  How  many  scars  do  you  carry  ?  A 
being  with  a  heart  like  an  iceberg  will  never  under- 
stand one  whose  passions  are  like  a  volcano,  which 
may  break  out  at  any  moment  and  overwhelm 
everything  in  disaster  and  death.  Believe  me,  your 
real  value  to  the  universe  does  not  consist  in  your 
immaculateness,  but  in  the  grandeur  of  your 
struggle.  If  you  have  stood  up  to  your  enemy, 
looked  it  straight  in  the  eyes,  struck  it  down  and 
trampled  it  underfoot,  you  count  for  far  more  than 
if  you  never  had  an  enemy  to  face.  It  does  not 
matter  so  very  much  that  it  is  still  writhing  alive 
beneath  your  feet  and  has  power  to  draw  your  life- 
blood,  for  that  is  not  the  last  word.  If  I  were  to 
tell  you  that  believing  something  about  the  fight 
which  Jesus  fought  will  give  your  enemy  its  death- 
blow I  should  tell  you  a  lie;  you  will  have  to  deal 
that  blow  yourself,  but  the  strength  that  deals  it 
is  the  strength  of  God.  But  you  need  never  be 
afraid  of  the  result.  If  Calvary  could  not  kill  Jesus, 
neither  will  evil  destroy  you.  "  Fear  not  them 
which  kill  the  body,"  and  after  that  have  no  more 
that  they  can  do.  But  take  care  that  nothing  shall 
ever  be  allowed  to  kill  that  in  you  which  is  likest 
God — neither  sorrow,  calamity,  temptation,  nor 
any  one  of  the  myriad  forces  which  are  the  serpent's 
fangs  in  the  flesh  of  Christ. 

Not  a  blow  is*  wasted,  however  much  it  may  seemi 
to  be  so.    The  good  fight  of  faith  is  that  in  which 


TRAMPLING   THE   SERPENT         43 

every  son  of  God  is  contending  for  mastery  against 
his  own  baser  self,  and  against  everything  that 
would  stifle  the  soul  of  the  race.  And,  in  the  long 
run,  there  can  be  no  more  doubt  about  the  issue 
than  about  the  fact  that  there  is  a  sun  in  heaven 
which  will  presently  turn  winter  darkness  into 
summer  splendour.  The  conflict  is  ours;  the 
victory  is  God's. 

Because  of  death  hold  not  thy  life  too  cheap  ; 

Plan  for  the  years — found  broad  and  strong — aim  high; 

Nobly  to  fail  is  more  than  victory 

Over  unworthy  foes  ;  mourn  not  nor  weep, 

One  span  of  life  thou  hast  'twixt  deep  and  deep. 

Be  all  thy  care  to  fill  it  gloriously  ; 

Live  even  as  if  thou  knew'st  thou  could'st  not  die. 

This  day  is  short — there  will  be  years  for  sleep. 

Therefore  work  thou  while  it  is  called  to-day, 
And  let  the  night  of  the  night's  things  take  care. 
By  those  strong  souls  who  leave  our  earth  more  fair 
With  their  strenuous  service  unto  all  for  aye 
I  charge  thee  work,  and  let  not  death  dismay, 
Nor  the  shadow  of  death,  but  greatly  hope  and  dare. 


IV 

JACOB'S  WRESTLING 

**  And  Jacob  was  left  alone;  and  there  wrestled  a 
man  with  him  until  the  breaking  of  the  day.'' — Gen. 
xxxii.  24, 

In  approaching  the  subject  indicated  in  our  text 
1  am  conscious  of  a  certain  amount  of  difficulty 
arising  from  the  fact  that  this  passage  has  been 
preached  upon  so  often  that  it  has  come  to  acquire 
a  significance  for  the  Christian  mind  which  no  one 
wishes  to  have  disturbed.  Most  people  are  im- 
patient of  anything  which  sounds  like  criticism  of 
an  accepted  view  of  any  subject — religious,  literary, 
social,  or  political.  And  yet  without  such  criti- 
cism we  cannot  possibly  arrive  at  definite  knowledge 
of  the  sources  of  our  beliefs  or  the  true  strength  of 
our  convictions. 

You  are  all  aware,  no  doubt,  of  the  way  in  which 
this  story  of  Jacob's  wrestling  with  the  angel  has 
been  made  use  of  in  Christian  thought  in  the  im- 
mediate past.  Take  our  own  hymn  book,  for 
instance,  and  notice  the  w^ay  in  which  reference  is 
made  to  the  episode  in  Charles  Wesley's  well- 
known  hymn. 

Come,  O  Thou  Traveller  unknown, 
Whom  still  I  hold,  but  cannot  see, 

My  company  before  is  gone, 
And  I  am  left  alone  with  Thee; 
44 


JACOB'S   WRESTLING  45 

With  thee  all  night  I  mean  to  stay, 
And  wrestle  till  the  break  of  day. 

The  very  phrase,  *'  wrestHng  with  God  in  prayer," 
is  derived  from  the  language  of  our  text,  and  im- 
plies that  what  Jacob  is  supposed  to  have  done  in 
the  midnight  experience  described  in  this  chapter 
we  must  do  if  we  are  in  earnest  about  spiritual 
blessing.  The  assumption  in  most  minds  appears 
to  be  that  Jacob's  view  of  the  nature  of  God  was 
the  same  as  ours,  and  that  when  he  was  wrestling 
he  was  really  praying  with  all  his  might.  Robert- 
son, of  Brighton,  has  a  great  sermon  on  the  subject, 
in  w^hich  this  interpretation  of  the  story  is  taken 
for  granted  all  the  way  through,  and  a  valuable 
spiritual  lesson  deduced  therefrom.  Only  a  month 
ago  I  heard  a  sermon  myself  in  which  the  same 
thing  was  not  only  taken  for  granted  but  plainly 
stated  by  the  preacher,  and  a  very  good  sermon  it 
was  too.  In  thus  pointing  out  the  homiletical  use 
to  which  this  ancient  story  has  been  put,  I  am  very 
far  from  wishing  to  suggest  that  the  results  have 
not  been  good  and  useful  in  their  place,  but  what 
I  wish  to  insist  upon  is  that  in  the  light  of  modern 
biblical  scholarship  no  such  interpretation  is  war- 
ranted. We  do  not  lose  anything  by  knowing  this. 
We  never  do  lose  anything  by  facing  the  truth, 
and  to  do  so  in  this  instance  will  certainly  repay  us. 
Observe,  then,  to  begin  with,  how  obscure  is  the 
reference  to  Jacob's  adversary.  Our  text  says  that 
**  there  wrestled  a  man  with  him  until  the  breaking 
of  the  day."  Was  this  man  God?  If  so,  how 
anthropomorphic  the  whole  story  becomes  !  We 
should  not  venture  to  use  such  language  about  the 


46  JACOB'S    WRESTLING 

relations  of  man  and  God  to-day.  In  what  way 
did  Jacob  enter  into  conflict  with  this  being  ?  Was 
it  only — as  we  are  so  often  told — a  spiritual  con- 
flict provoked  by  Jacob's  fear  of  Esau  and  his 
sense  that  the  punishment  of  his  former  sin  seemed 
now  to  be  descending  upon  him  ?  If  so,  what 
about  the  strained  thigh  upon  which  the  patriarch 
halted  during  the  remainder  of  his  march  ?  If 
this  wrestle  was  really  only  an  agonising  prayer 
for  forgiveness  and  help,  why  was  it  that  Jacob 
had  to  ask  the  name  of  his  antagonist?  Where 
are  the  signs  of  contrition  in  Jacob's  demeanour? 
Does  the  narrative  say  that  he  was  sorry  on  account 
of  his  sins?  There  is  no  suggestion  of  the  kind. 
Then,  again,  observe  the  curious  form  of  state- 
ment:  **  And  when  he  saw  that  he  prevailed  not 
against  him,  he  touched  the  hollow  of  his  thigh." 
If  this  were  indeed  the  Divine  Being  there  would 
be  no  need  for  such  a  discovery.  According  to 
the  narrative,  Jacob's  antagonist  was  unable  to 
overcome  him  even  when  he  had  sprained  his  limb, 
and  the  request :  ' '  Let  me  go,  for  the  day  breaketh, ' ' 
was  a  confession  that  they  were  fairly  well  matched. 
How  does  this  fit  in  with  the  view  that  the  whole 
experience  was  spiritual,  and  presented  in  allegori- 
cal form?  You  see,  therefore,  that  even  as  the 
account  stands  it  presents  difficulties  which  the 
ordinary  explanation  does  not  solve. 

The  matter  becomes  simpler  when  looked  at  in 
the  light  of  what  modern  biblical  scholarship  is 
saying  about  the  true  significance  of  all  these 
patriarchal  stories  in  the  book  of  Genesis.  Abra- 
ham, Isaac,  and  Jacob  are  names  which  stand  not 


JACOB'S   WRESTLING  47 

only  for  real  individuals,  but  also  for  tribes.  In 
Old  Testament  literature  the  name  Jacob  is  often 
applied  to  the  whole  Israelitish  nation,  as,  for 
example,  in  Isaiah  xli  :  ''  Thou,  Israel,  art  my 
servant,  Jacob  whom  I  have  chosen,  the  seed  of 
Abraham  my  friend."  The  farther  we  get  back 
in  Israelitish  history  the  more  probable  does  it 
appear  that  in  such  legends  as  the  one  which  con- 
tains our  text  we  have  a  pictorial  account  of  a  crisis 
in  the  affairs  of  the  tribe  or  tribes  which  formed 
the  nucleus  of  the  nation  of  after  days.  In  this 
chapter  we  have  a  hint  of  the  age-long  struggle 
between  Israelites  and  Edomites,  that  is,  between 
Jacob  and  Esau.  Neither  of  these  two  ever  at- 
tained to  great  political  importance  or  occupied  a 
very  large  territory;  but  they  were  rivals,  and  in 
the  end  Israel  succeeded  in  showing  herself  stronger 
than  Edom,  although  Edom  seems  to  have  been 
the  older  people.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  pro- 
phecy said  to  have  been  given  to  Rebekah  :  *'  The 
elder  shall  serve  the  younger."  Here  in  the  thirty- 
second'  chapter  we  have  an  account  of  the  passage 
of  the  tribe  of  Jacob  through  a  settled  portion  of 
Edomite  territory.  The  nomads  are  fiercely  op- 
posed by  the  inhabitants,  who  make  a  night  attack 
upon  them,  and  a  sharp  conflict  follows,  in  which 
the  Jacobites  (if  you  will  allow  that  word)  succeed 
in  beating  off  their  assailants,  but  only  with  con- 
siderable loss  to  themselves.  Read  the  story  again 
from  this  point  of  view,  and  see  how  plain  every- 
thing becomes.  Jacob — for  so  we  may  call  the 
patriarchal  leader  of  these  Bedouins — finds  his 
following  in  great  danger  from  an  attack  in  the 


48  JACOB'S    WRESTLING 

rear.  He  knows  he  is  in  Edomite  territory,  but  he 
does  not  even  know  the  name  of  the  tribe  which  is 
attacking  him.  Forthwith  he  sends  his  women  and 
children  across  the  ford  Jabbok  and  prepares  to 
defend  the  passage  with  his  whole  force  of  available 
fighting  men.  How  fierce  the  conflict  must  have 
been  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  daylight  shone 
upon  a  drawn  battle,  and  that  the  Jacobites  were 
permitted  to  cross  the  ford  unpursued,  carrying 
their  wounded  as  they  went.  The  rest  of  the  march 
would  have  to  be  a  slow  one  in  consequence  of  the 
losses  which  had  been  sustained.  This  is  what  is 
meant  by  the  straining  of  the  thigh.  When  Edom, 
or  that  portion  of  Edom  which  commenced  the 
assault,  found  that  they  prevailed  not  against  Israel, 
they  tried  to  turn  his  flank,  with  the  result  that  the 
Jacobites  were  severely  mauled  in  the  encounter, 
although  they  held  their  own  until  daybreak. 
"  And  the  sun  rose  upon  him  as  he  passed  over 
Penuel,  and  he  halted  upon  his  thigh."  Jacob  had 
been  hard  hit,  but  the  danger  was  not  yet  over. 
There  were  Edomites  in  front  as  well  as  behind, 
and  so  the  Jacobites  found  it  expedient  to  send  on  a 
valuable  present  to  the  head  of  the  Edomite  tribes 
in  the  hope  of  gaining  his  favour,  which  they 
succeeded  in  doing,  with  the  result  that  in  the  rest 
of  their  passage  through  the  country  they  were 
unmolested. 

Where,  then,  does  the  Divine  Being  come  in, 
and  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  blessing  which 
Jacob  is  stated  to  have  obtained  ?  Well,  we  have 
to  recognise  that  at  the  time  to  which  this  account 
refers,     these    people    believed     in     many     gods. 


JACOB'S   WRESTLING  49 

Jehovah,  the  God  of  Israel,  who  in  process  of  time 
came  to  be  thought  of  as  the  God  of  all  the  nations 
upon  earth,  was  originally  regarded  as  only  the 
tribal  deity ;  He  was  the  God  of  Israel,  but  not  the 
God  of  Edom.  After  the  midnight  conflict,  already 
described,  the  Edomites  recognised  the  prowess  of 
the  God  of  Israel,  and  were  willing  to  make  terms 
w^ith  His  worshippers.  They  asked  for  a  truce — 
'*  Let  me  go,  for  the  day  breaketh  " — and  the 
result  was  an  understanding  which  was  supposed 
to  be  entered  into  with  the  sanction  of  Israel's  God, 
the  testimony  of  the  Edomites  being  :  ''  Thou  hast 
had  power  with  God  " — the  word  used  for  God  is  a 
very  general  term  :  ''  Thou  hast  had  power  with  a 
Divine  One" — "and  therefore  thou  shalt  prevail 
against  men."  The  name  of  the  Edomite  deity  is 
not  given,  but  the  power  of  Jacob's  God  is  recog- 
nised. Both  parties  apparently  thought  that,  but 
for  Divine  help,  the  Jacobites  could  not  have  held 
their  own  in  the  midnight  assault.  Hence  their 
new  name — Israel,  that  is,  God's  struggler,  God's 
warrior,  God's  victor.  The  next  day,  when  the 
Edomites  gathered  in  still  greater  force,  the  truce 
was  cemented,  and  amicable  feelings  took  the  place 
of  hostile  ones  for  the  time  being.  You  thus  see 
that  we  have  here  a  piece  of  prehistoric  tradition, 
but  it  describes  an  actual  event  in  the  early  life  of 
the  people  of  Israel,  and  what  took  place  at  that 
time  was  deemed  so  important  that  it  became  a 
part  of  the  religious  treasure  of  Israel  ages  after. 

This  examination  of  a  primitive  story   is  con< 
firmed  by  what  we  know  of  the  habits  and  customs 
of  nomadic  tribes  everywhere.    It  is  quite  a  mistake 
4 


50  JACOB'S    WRESTLING 

to  read  into  it  the  views  and  feelings  of  a  later 
time  and  a  widely  different  civilisation.  The  story 
is  interesting  from  many  points  of  view,  but  it  will 
not  bear  the  construction  which  is  commonly  put 
upon  it  in  our  hymns  and  sermons. 

Well,  then,  some  one  will  say,  of  what  use  is  it 
to  us  ?  What  possible  help  or  inspiration  can  there 
be  in  this  strangely  worded  description  of  the  mid- 
night conflict  of  two  small,  half-civilised  tribes  ages 
and  ages  ago?  I  think  I  can  tell  you.  In  the  first 
place,  I  want  you  to  recognise  that  the  men  who 
first  wrote  down  this  story — long  after  the  event  to 
which  it  alludes — were  deeply  religious  men  who 
believed  with  all  their  hearts  in  the  directing  wis- 
dom of  God  as  manifested  in  their  own  national 
history.  Looking  back  upon  special  turning 
points,  they  were  able  to  discern  something  of 
what  God's  purpose  must  have  been  at  the  time, 
although  it  was  not  evident  until  perhaps  long 
after  the  crisis  was  over.  This  was  the  way,  there- 
fore, in  which  these  later  writers  came  to  regard 
the  popular  tradition  concerning  the  early  conflict 
with  Edom.  They  would  say  to  themselves : 
"  God  was  really  there.  Had  the  result  been  differ- 
ent from  what  it  was,  had  the  following  of  Jacob 
been  overthrown,  all  subsequent  history  would  have 
been  different  too.  Prayer  to  the  God  of  Israel 
did  make  a  difference;  it  nerved  men's  arms  and 
strengthened  their  hearts  in  such  a  way  that 
although  their  numbers  were  few  they  became  in- 
vincible. The  issue  seemed  small,  but  it  was  not 
small;   there  is  nothing  small  to  God." 

This   is  just  where  this  ancient   story  with   its 


JACOB'S   WRESTLING  51 

religious  flavour  touches  me.  There  is  indeed 
nothing  small  to  God,  and  at  once  I  feel  myself  to 
be  in  close  psychological  and  spiritual  sympathy 
with  the  little  group  of  Jacobites  who  called  upon 
their  God  and  fought  their  fight  so  bravely  for 
their  women  and  children  in  the  midst  of  thick 
darkness  in  a  hostile  country  in  ages  long  gone 
by.  We  are  not  so  very  different  from  them,  after 
all;  fundamentally  their  problems  are  ours,  and 
our  means  of  solving  them  are  the  same  as  theirs. 
In  every  midnight  conflict  in  which  faith  and 
courage  go  hand  in  hand,  I  see  exactly  the  same 
situation  as  that  set  forth  in  this  chapter,  although 
the  externals  may  be  utterly  different.  Men  have 
always  been  praying  and  fighting,  and  they  will 
go  on  praying  and  fighting  to  the  end  of  time. 
The  present  grows  out  of  the  past;  the  praying 
and  fighting  of  earlier  days  have  made  possible  the 
world  of  to-day,  and  the  praying  and  fighting 
which  you  and  I  are  now  compelled  to  do  are 
making  possible  the  brighter  world  of  to-morrow, 
and  God  is  in  it  all  from  first  to  last.  It  is  not 
my  purpose  this  morning  to  enter  into  the  question 
as  to  why  there  should  have  to  be  conflict  at  all ; 
sometimes  I  think  I  can  see  the  reason  why;  but 
at  present  my  only  object  is  to  show  that  where 
conflict  is  God  is,  and  the  outcome  of  the  conflict 
depends  upon  the  clearness  with  which  we  recognise 
that  fact  and  act  accordingly. 

Now  here  is  where  a  further  difficulty  emerges  in 
connection  with  our  subject : — In  actual  everyday 
life  it  is  not  always  your  man  of  strongly  marked 
religious  faith  who  carries  all  before  him,  and  it 


52  JACOB'S    WRESTLING 

would  not  be  a  good  thing  if  it  were  so.  In 
Morocco,  for  example,  at  this  moment  a  kind  of 
holy  war  is  being  preached  against  the  European 
invader,  but  we  all  know  it  will  be  preached  in 
vain;  in  spite  of  the  splendid  courage  and  self- 
devotion  of  the  Moors,  French  artillery  will  make 
short  work  of  their  hopes.  Besides,  whose  God  is 
to  win  ?  In  the  conflict  to  which  our  text  refers 
Israel  had  a  God  and  Edom  had  a  god,  and  one 
side  was  just  as  determined  as  the  other;  was  God's 
interest  upon  one  side  only  ?  Prayers  were  offered 
on  both  sides  during  the  Boer  war,  and  yet  there 
are  plenty  of  people  still  living  who  would  say 
that  the  wrong  side  won,  after  all;  how  is  this? 
Then,  if  we  leave  bloodshed  alone,  and  come  to  the 
equally  cruel  warfare  imposed  by  the  prevailing 
conditions  in  modern  industrial  life,  does  the 
principle  hold  good  that  the  man  of  strong  religious 
faith  always  comes  out  on  top  ?  Does  not  experi- 
ence teach  us  that  it  is  the  man  with  the  most 
capital  and  the  greatest  amount  of  business  shrewd-- 
ness  who  does  that  ?  Apparently,  too,  he  is  all  the 
more  likely  to  succeed  if  he  is  not  too  heavily 
burdened  with  conscientious  scruples ;  the  man  who 
pays  heed  to  his  conscience  often  seems  to  be 
actually  at  a  disadvantage  in  comparison  with  his 
rivals.  Many  and  many  a  midnight  conflict  has 
had  to  be  gone  through,  the  only  outward  result 
of  which  has  been  worldly  failure  and  material 
ruin  to  the  good  and  upright  man. 

I  fully  realise  all  this,  and  I  realise,  too,  the 
apparent  absurdity  of  attempting  to  deduce  any 
principle  of  guidance  for  modern  action  from  this 


JACOB'S    WRESTLING  53 

story  of  the  savage  conflict  of  two  small  bodies  of 
tribesmen  in  an  Eastern  country  three  millenniums 
ago;  one  might  as  well  try,  on  the  face  of  it,  to 
deduce  a  spiritual  principle  from  an  engagement 
between  Soudanese  dervishes  and  Abyssinian  rifle- 
men to-day. 

All  the  same,  I  emphatically  affirm  that  all  moral 
advance  in  the  affairs  of  men  is  made  by  the  definite 
recognition  of  the  presence  of  God  in  any  given 
crisis,  in  which  case  the  real  victory  may  rest  with 
him  who  suffers  the  apparent  defeat.  He  may  do 
more  than  halt  upon  his  thigh  as  he  passes  over 
Penuel,  he  may  fall  upon  the  field;  but  he  is  the 
servant  of  God  and  the  real  victor  in  the  age-long 
conflict  of  which  good  is  the  goal :  '*  The  one  far- 
off  divine  event  to  which  the  whole  creation 
moves."  But  when  I  speak  of  God  I  mean  much 
more  than  a  name  or  even  a  person.  When  I 
speak  of  God  I  mean  the  sum  of  all  human  excel- 
lence and  the  goal  of  all  true  human  aspiration.  I 
believe  that  the  strongest  man  on  earth  is  the  man 
who  recognises  God  as  the  being  who  includes  all 
that  we  mean  by  personal,  and  infinitely  more;  as 
well  as  all  that  we  mean  by  the  true,  the  beautiful 
and  the  good,  and  infinitely  more.  We  can  only 
apprehend  and  express  God  up  to  the  limit  of  our 
present  capacity,  but  this  we  ought  to  do,  and 
ought  never  to  rest  content  with  less.  Our  idea  of 
God  to-day,  thanks  to  Jesus,  is  immeasurably 
higher  than  that  of  the  tribesmen  whose  battle  sug- 
gested our  text,  but  perhaps  we  are  not  as  true  to 
it.  It  is  possible  for  a  man  to  name  the  name  of 
God  with  the  utmost  reverence,  and  at  the  same 


54  JACOB'S    WRESTLING 

time  to  be  serving  a  moral  standard  which  he 
knows  is  not  the  highest.  On  the  other  hand,  a 
man  may  say  little  about  God,  but  may  be  possessed 
by  a  moral  passion  which  renders  it  impossible  for 
him  to  be  silent  in  the  presence  of  a  public  or 
private  wrong;  which  of  these  is  nearer  to  the 
reality  of  things  ?  There  can  hardly  be  any  doubt 
about  the  answer. 

The  truth,  then,  illustrated  in  our  text  is  this. 
In  the  call  of  duty  we  must  learn  to  hear  the  voice 
of  God. 

We  have  no  means  for  discerning  the  will  of 
God  otherwise  than  by  obeying  that  which  we  feel 
to  be  highest  and  truest  in  ourselves.  God  is  the 
supreme  reality  of  all  being,  and  that  reality  can 
only  find  expression  in  the  truth  and  faithfulness 
of  individual  men.  In  any  given  crisis  the  truest 
service  we  can  render  to  God  is  to  do  our  best  for 
the  cause  to  which  we  stand  committed,  and  leave 
results  to  Him.  There  never  can  be  much  question 
as  to  what  the  cause  is  which  has  the  greatest  claim 
upon  us  at  any  one  time.  According  to  our  text, 
the  cause  of  the  followers  of  Jacob  was  the  safety 
of  the  women  and  children ;  they  did  not  see  any 
farther  than  that;  they  did  not  know,  and  could 
not  know,  that  they  were  making  history,  and  that 
a  nation  would  come  into  being  as  a  consequence 
of  that  one  night's  work.  Neither  could  they  have 
dreamed  that  they  were  preparing  the  foundations 
of  a  world  religion,  and  making  a  pathway  along 
which  would  come  the  world's  Redeemer;  small 
events  are  the  hinges  upon  which  great  ones  turn. 
What  they  did  then  we  have  to  do  now,  and  we 


JACOB'S   WRESTLING  55 

can  see  no  farther  than  they.  In  that  midnight 
battle,  humanly  speaking,  Israel's  mighty  men 
were  fighting  not  only  for  their  own  wives  and  little 
ones,  but  for  the  Christ  that  was  to  be.  In  our 
hours  of  stress  and  danger,  when  all  our  moral 
resources  are  strained  to  the  uttermost,  we  are 
doing  just  the  same  when  we  are  faithful  to  the 
best  we  can  see,  and  the  victory  our  courage  and 
faith  enable  us  to  win  is  therefore  greater  than  we 
know — nay,  even  apparent  defeat  must  mean  a 
realisation  of  God's  purpose,  wider  and  deeper 
than  at  present  we  have  eyes  to  see. 

To  some  extent  there  may  even  seem  to  be  a  con- 
flict of  ideals  involved,  and  it  may  be  no  easy  matter 
to  make  our  choice.  Readers  of  the  Bhaghavad  Gita 
will  remember  the  perplexity  in  which  Prince  Arjuna 
found  himself,  and  the  advice  which  the  god  Krishna 
gave  him.  Arjuna  was  obliged  to  take  part  in  a  civil 
war,  in  which  to  join  either  side  meant  shedding 
the  blood  of  his  kinsmen.  While  he  was  in  great 
trouble  of  mind  about  this,  Krishna  came  to  him 
disguised  as  a  charioteer,  and  bade  him  choose  with- 
out hesitation  the  side  on  which  he  could  most 
freely  serve,  leaving  the  outcome  in  the  hands  of 
God.  This  counsel  is  similar  to  that  given  by  the 
Jesuit  in  John  Inglesant:  ''  It  matters  much  less 
what  side  you  choose  in  a  time  of  storm  and  con- 
flict than  that  you  should  make  the  best  choice  open 
to  you  at  the  moment,  and  serve  as  bravely  and 
faithfully  as  ever  you  can."  Surely  there  is  a  great 
truth  in  this.  None  of  us  can  fully  understand 
either  the  genesis  or  the  issue  of  the  particular  crisis 
in  which  our  fortunes  happen  to  be  involved,  but 


56  JACOB'S    WRESTLING 

we  can  quite  well  understand  that  we  have  no 
business  to  trifle  with  it,  and  that  there  is  a  place 
marked  out  for  us  somewhere  in  connection  with  it. 
To  side  with  Israel  in  resisting  Edom  may  in  the 
long  run  be  of  more  service  even  to  Edom  than 
that  we  should  shirk  the  issue  and  do  nothing  at 
all.  In  the  present  education  struggle,  for  instance, 
it  were  better  to  be  either  Lord  Hugh  Cecil  or  Dr. 
Clifford  than  to  be  utterly  without  interest  in  the 
grand  result  of  the  controversy  in  which  those  two 
Christian  patriots  are  so  sharply  opposed. 

Suffer  me  now  to  press  this  truth  home  upon 
your  individual  experience.  What  man  is  there 
among  you  who  has  not  known  his  hour  of  mid- 
night conflict?  And  what  true  man  is  there  who 
would  not  acknowledge  that  the  sternest  part  of  that 
conflict  arose  from  the  fact  that  he  was  conscious 
of  being  the  stay  of  other  lives  than  his  own  ?  Go 
to  the  bottom  of  any  trouble,  and  you  will  find 
that  it  has  a  social  significance ;  we  suffer  individ- 
ually just  because  we  are  bound  up  together.  If 
any  of  you  business  men  have  ever  passed  a  sleep- 
less night  on  account  of  the  danger  of  possible  loss 
and  ruin,  it  has  not  been  because  you  feared  the 
future  on  your  own  account :  that  would  be  a  com- 
paratively small  matter.  No,  what  troubled  you 
was  just  what  troubled  the  men  whose  midnight 
conflict  made  my  text  possible — the  weaker  lives  on 
the  further  side  of  the  ford  where  you  stood  at  bay, 
face  to  face  with  the  foe.  Is  not  the  situation  strik- 
ingly similar?  After  all,  you  see,  the  motives  of 
human  action,  and  the  spring  of  human  suffering, 
are  much  the  same  now  as  they  were  then.     I  dare 


JACOB'S   WRESTLING  57 

say  some  of  you  spent  some  anxious  hours  last 
night  thinking  over  your  worldly  prospects,  with  no 
one  to  know  your  thoughts  but  God.  I  dare  say 
there  are  some  of  you  in  the  City  Temple  who  are 
doing  so  at  this  very  moment.  No  one  knows  your 
anxieties,  or  sees  the  inside  of  your  trouble,  but 
yourself  and  God.  As  far  as  you  can  you  have 
kept  it  even  from  those  most  concerned.  Some- 
times in  such  circumstances  the  happy  laughter  of 
little  children  falls  sadly  upon  a  burdened  father's 
heart.  Those  of  you  who  know  what  it  is  to  sit  by 
the  fireside  in  a  loving  home,  with  your  solitary 
load  of  care  pressing  heavily  upon  your  thoughts, 
will  know  what  I  mean. 

In  all  such  cases  there  is  but  one  thing  to  be 
done,  and  that  is  to  play  the  man.  Trust  in  God 
and  wait  for  the  morning.  It  cannot  be  that,  if 
there  are  right  and  justice  at  the  heart  of  things, 
God  has  forgotten  the  children  of  His  own  being. 
Your  own  little  bit  of  duty  means  more  than  you 
can  at  present  see,  not  only  to  yourself,  or  to  that 
little  circle  you  care  for,  but  to  us,  to  all  mankind, 
and  to  the  heaven  you  cannot  see.  Your  duty 
cannot  be  delegated  to  anybody  else;  you  are 
wanted  in  the  field — you,  and  nobody  else  will  do. 
You  may  be  hard  hit  before  you  have  done  with 
it,  but  history  teaches  us  one  glorious  lesson.  It 
was  because  of  that  lesson  that  my  text  was  ever 
written — that  is,  that  faith  informed  by  love  never 
is  worsted  in  the  long  run.  If  it  could  be,  there 
would  be  no  God.  Read  the  witness  of  saints  and 
seers  for  a  thousand  years  of  Christian  history 
along  which  we  are  privileged  to  look,  and  you 


58  JACOB'S    WRESTLING 

will  find  that  testimony.  Jesus  came  to  His  ford 
Jabbok  when  He  reached  Gethsemane;  He  w^as 
alone  then  and  fighting  for  mankind,  not  for  His 
own  hand.  In  the  immediate  result  it  seemed  as 
though  the  enemy  had  crushed  him  beyond  re- 
covery, but  there  was  God  to  be  reckoned  with, 
and  therefore  to-day  Jesus,  to  our  devotion,  is  King 
of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords.  Wherefore,  seeing 
we  are  compassed  about  by  so  great  a  cloud  of 
witnesses,  let  us  lay  aside  every  weight,  and  the 
selfishness  and  cowardice  that  do  so  easily  beset 
us,  and  let  us  run  with  patience  the  race  that  is  set 
before  us,  looking  unto  Jesus. 

Hear  me,  then,  you  who  stand  alone  at  mid- 
night, guarding  your  ford  Jabbok,  with  the  weaker 
lives  in  the  rear.  The  issue  is  greater  than  you 
know,  but  it  could  not  be  simpler.  You  have  to 
do  just  what  Jesus  did,  and  wait  the  result  without 
fear.  It  is  not  chance  that  rules  the  universe,  but 
a  divine  wisdom  that  never  makes  a  mistake.  It 
is  not  selfishness  that  is  really  master,  even  in  this 
w^orld,  though  it  sometimes  seems  to  be  so,  but  a 
divine  love  that  cannot  be  hindered  or  destroyed. 
Trust  in  that  divine  wisdom  can  never  be  put  to 
shame,  and  the  service  of  that  divine  love  will  issue 
in  gladness  of  heart  to  the  worker,  and  more  and 
more  abundant  life  and  blessing  to  all  mankind. 


THE  INNER  VOICE 

"  After  the  fire  a  still  small  voiced — i  KINGS  xix.  12. 

There  is  one  thing  upon  which  all  serious- 
minded  people  are  agreed,  whether  their  theology 
be  old  or  new,  namely,  that  there  is  no  book  to 
match  the  Bible  in  knowledge  of  the  human  heart 
in  relation  to  God.  The  greater  the  light  thrown 
upon  it  by  modern  scholarship,  the  more  clearly 
do  we  perceive  this  to  be  the  case  :  criticism  and 
historical  research  have  done  nothing  to  diminish 
the  value  of  the  written  w^ord — on  the  contrary,  they 
have  in  some  cases  added  enormously  to  our  per- 
ception of  its  spiritual  worth.  The  story  of  Elijah 
is  a  very  good  example  of  this.  The  work  of  a 
succession  of  eminent  scholars  and  archaeologists 
has  placed  us  in  possession  of  a  number  of  facts 
which  throw  considerable  light  upon  the  life  and 
work  of  this  great  man  and  enable  us  to  realise  the 
inwardness  of  the  legends  associated  with  his  name. 
Amongst  these  legends  perhaps  the  most  beautiful 
is  the  one  whence  our  text  is  taken.  Here  we  see 
the  austere  prophet,  fleeing  for  his  life,  and  in  great 
depression  of  spirit,  engaged  in  solitary  com- 
munion with  God  and  listening  to  the  divine  voice 
bidding  him  undertake  the  last  act  in  his  striking 

59 


6o  THE    INNER   VOICE 

and  stormy  career.  I  desire  this  morning,  if  I 
can,  to  make  clear  to  you  something  of  what  was 
taking  place  in  the  great  soul  of  Elijah  at  this  time, 
and  what  had  led  up  to  it.  I  hope  you  will  find 
something  in  it  that  will  help  you  in  to-day's  task, 
and  perhaps  in  to-day's  trouble.  At  any  rate,  I 
think  you  will  see  that  in  essentials  human  nature 
and  human  problems  have  not  changed  so  very 
much  since  Elijah's  day. 

What,  then,  was  the  matter  in  the  kingdom  of 
Israel  at  this  time?  Well,  on  the  face  of  it,  the 
issue  for  which  Elijah  contended  so  manfully 
throughout  his  public  life  was  whether  Jehovah  or 
Baal  should  be  the  God  of  Israel.  This  was  not 
quite  the  case,  however.  It  was  far  more  than  a 
question  of  names.  The  real  issue  was  between 
Puritanism  and  Hedonism — between  an  ideal  of 
national  righteousness  and  the  sensual  rites  of 
nature  worship.  Now  this  was  no  mere  triviality; 
it  was  deep  and  vital.  Jehovah  was  not  only  the 
national  God  of  Israel,  but  the  God  of  purity, 
justice,  and  simplicity  of  life.  It  was  this  which 
distinguished  Him  most  from  the  deities  of  sur- 
rounding nations.  You  cannot  read  the  Old  Testa- 
ment without  seeing  that  at  certain  periods  Jehovah 
was  thought  of  as  a  grim  and  terrible  God,  but 
He  never  was  the  God  of  bestiality  and  self-indulg- 
ence. Better  The  grim  and  terrible  than  the  God 
whose  service  is  associated  with  degrading  and 
filthy  exercise  of  animal  passion.  Under  King 
Ahab  the  worship  of  Jehovah  had  not  been  dis- 
continued, but  that  of  foreign  deities  had  been  in- 
troduced alongside  of  it — a  far  more  serious  mis- 


THE    INNER    VOICE  6i 

chief  than  if  the  ancient  rehgion  had  been  dis- 
avowed altogether.  Jehovah  now  became  one  God 
among  many.  The  various  Baals,  as  they  were 
called — that  is,  simply  "  deities  " — were  worshipped 
with  riotous,  drunken  orgies  of  the  most  shameful 
character,  while  the  altars  of  Jehovah,  though  not 
entirely  destroyed,  were  practically  neglected.  You 
see,  therefore,  that  here  was  a  moral  issue  of  the 
first  importance.  Elijah  was  not  merely  fighting 
for  a  name,  but  for  an  ideal.  He  stood  for  sim- 
plicity of  life,  cleanness  and  continence,  civic  and 
social  justice.  All  these  were  in  danger,  owing  to 
the  introduction  of  foreign  cults  and  customs.  The 
courts  and  camps  were  filled  with  lewd  women, 
who  were  able  to  pervert  justice  and  turn  society 
into  a  brothel.  The  story  of  Naboth's  vineyard  is 
a  sufficient  illustration  of  what  was  going  on.  The 
corruption  of  all  the  higher  ranks  of  society  at  this 
time  led  to  the  spoliation  of  the  poor  and  weak,  and 
a  general  deterioration  of  manners  which  would  in 
the  end  have  resulted  in  the  break-up  of  the  State. 
It  was  to  counteract  this  that  Elijah  appeared,  full 
of  fiery  zeal  and  courage,  a  man  of  tremendous 
moral  force.  Looking  beneath  the  letter  of  the  few 
fragmentary  accounts  we  possess  concerning  him, 
we  can  see  that  he  must  have  been  an  object  of 
great  dread  to  the  reigning  house.  There  is  one 
most  illuminating  incident  told  in  i  Kings  xviii, 
which  gives  us  an  insight  into  the  kind  of  man 
he  was.  It  appears  that  Queen  Jezebel  had  mas- 
sacred some  hundreds  of  the  prophets  of  Jehovah. 
A  few  of  them,  however,  had  been  saved  by  the 
action  of  Obadiah,  the  steward  of  the  royal  house- 


62  THE    INNER    VOICE 

hold,  who  had  hidden  them  in  a  cave  and  fed  them 
with  bread  and  water.  A  great  drought  shortly 
afterwards  fell  upon  the  land.  Obadiah  was  sent 
by  King  Ahab  to  try  to  find  some  pasture  for  the 
perishing  horses  and  cattle,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  arrest  Elijah,  if  possible.  On  the  way  he  met 
the  prophet,  who  bade  him  go  back  and  tell  the 
king  that  he  was  coming  to  speak  to  him  of  his 
own  accord.  Poor  Obadiah  was  afraid  to  tell  Ahab 
this. 

And  he  said,  ''  What  have  I  sinned,  that  thou 
wouldst  deliver  thy  servant  into  the  hand  of  Ahab, 
to  slay  me?  As  the  Lord  thy  God  liveth,  there 
is  no  nation  or  kingdom  whither  my  lord  hath  not 
sent  to  seek  thee.  .  .  .  And  so  when  I  come  and 
tell  Ahab,  and  he  cannot  find  thee,  he  shall  slay 
me  .  .  ."  And  Elijah  said,  "  As  the  Lord  of  hosts 
liveth,  before  whom  I  stand,  I  will  surely  show 
myself  unto  him  to-day."  So  Obadiah  went  to 
meet  Ahab,  and  told  him ;  and  Ahab  went  to  meet 
Elijah.  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  Ahab  saw 
Elijah,  that  Ahab  said  unto  him,  "Art  thou  he 
that  troubleth  Israel?"  And  he  answered,  ''  I  have 
not  troubled  Israel;  but  thou,  and  thy  father's 
house,  in  that  ye  have  forsaken  the  commandments 
of  the  Lord,  and  thou  hast  followed  Baalim." 

Here  you  have  at  a  glance  the  character  of  the 
man — fearless,  indomitable,  stern  even  to  ruthless- 
ness;  full  of  self-forgetful  zeal  for  his  country  and 
his  God.  The  weak  and  wicked  monarch  quailed 
in  his  mighty  presence,  so  that  for  a  moment  he 
actually  agreed  to  his  demand  for  a  trial  of  strength 
between  Baal  and  Jehovah.    Then  follows  the  his- 


THE    INNER    VOICE  63 

toric  scene  on  Carmel,  in  which  the  grand,  solitary, 
majestic  figure  of  Elijah  was  pitted  against  four 
hundred  and  fifty  priests  of  Baal.  We  cannot  be 
sure  of  what  actually  took  place,  but  the  immediate 
result  was  a  reaction  in  favour  of  Jehovah  and  a 
wholesale  massacre  of  the  priests  of  Baal.  Then 
comes  a  counter-reaction.  Within  a  few  hours 
this  hitherto  dauntless  prophet  and  patriot  is  in  full 
flight  before  the  soldiers  of  Jezebel,  and  seeks 
shelter  in  the  fastnesses  of  Mount  Horeb.  His 
massive  soul  is  in  the  deepest  despondency;  his 
bloody  triumph  had  been  short-lived;  all  his  work 
is  failure  once  more.  So  he  prays  for  death,  not 
at  the  hand  of  his  enemies,  but  at  the  hand  of  God. 
The  scene  that  follows  is  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able pieces  of  word-painting  in  the  whole  Bible. 
As  the  sorrowful  prophet  repeats  over  and  over 
again  to  himself  the  reason  for  his  presence  there — 
"  I  have  been  very  jealous  for  the  Lord  God  of 
hosts  :  For  the  children  of  Israel  have  forsaken  Thy 
covenant,  thrown  down  Thine  altars,  and  slain  Thy 
prophets  with  the  sword;  and  I,  even  I  only,  am 
left;  and  they  seek  my  life,  to  take  it  away" — a 
terrifying  storm  breaks  out,  and  Elijah  takes  his 
stand  upon  an  eminence  to  watch  it.  Probably  it 
was  night,  when  the  effect  would  be  even  more 
sublime  than  by  day.  Rocks  were  torn  from  their 
foundations  by  the  fury  of  the  tempest,  aided  by  a 
volcanic  eruption  and  succeeded  by  a  conflagration. 
It  was  all  in  keeping  with  the  mood  of  Elijah's 
storm-tossed  soul,  and  yet  it  must  have  made  him 
feel  how  puny  he  was  in  the  presence  of  such 
titanic  forces.     He  remembered  that  in  ages  long 


64  THE    INNER    VOICE 

before  God  was  said  to  have  appeared  to  His  people 
on  this  very  mountain  veiled  in  cloud  and  flame. 
He  remembered  that  these  had  been  looked  upon 
as  tokens  of  the  divine  majesty,  and  had  struck 
dread  into  the  heart  of  Israel.  Yet  here  was  the 
same  spectacle  with  no  one  to  view  it  but  him- 
self. Hour  after  hour  passed  on ;  wind,  earth- 
quake, and  fire  succeeded  each  other  as  the  solitary 
watcher  continued  to  gaze.  Then  morning  dawned ; 
the  violence  of  the  elements  died  away;  the  sun 
rose  upon  a  scene  of  quietness  and  peace,  and  the 
tumult  in  Elijah's  soul  subsided  likewise.  He 
began  to  realise  that  he  had  been  too  self-conscious, 
too  tempestuous,  and  that  his  very  despair  was 
egotistic.  Who  was  he  to  champion  the  King  of 
kings?  Could  not  the  mighty  Being  to  whose 
thunders  he  had  just  listened,  and  whose  hand  could 
pluck  mountains  from  their  base  and  shatter  them 
in  pieces,  watch  over  and  save  His  people  Israel  ? 
Was  his  own  stormy  zeal  in  the  service  of  God  any 
more  productive  than  this  tempest  of  a  night  ?  Did 
God  need  one  more  than  the  other  for  the  mani- 
festation of  Himself  ?  Where  was  God  now  ?  Was 
He  to  be  looked  for  in  the  destructive  effects  of 
earthquake,  wind,  and  fire  ?  Not  so.  God  was 
speaking  in  the  new  quietness  that  had  taken  pos- 
session of  the  soul  of  His  servant.  The  still  small 
voice  was  telling  him  that,  after  all,  the  tempest  of 
Carmel  had  not  been  necessary,  the  massacre  of 
priests  had  not  advanced  the  cause  of  righteous- 
ness a  single  jot.  Even  Elijah  himself  was  not 
necessary.  There  was  a  silent  Israel  that  had 
never  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal:   there  were  even 


THE    INNER    VOICE  65 

other  witnesses  and  other  workers  who  should  carry 
on  and  complete  what  Elijah  had  begun.  It  was 
not  in  catastrophic  events,  whether  in  nature  or  in 
human  society,  that  God  was  most  clearly  re- 
vealed, but  in  the  quiet  uprising  of  purer  desires 
and  nobler  feelings  in  the  hearts  of  men — '*  Not  by 
might  nor  by  power,  but  by  My  spirit,  saith  the 
Lord  of  hosts." 

If  ever  I  came  across  a  piece  of  genuine  spiritual 
history  I  think  I  have  found  it  here.  This  story 
is  a  great  prose  poem,  giving  me  insight  into  the 
workings  of  God  in  the  human  soul.  It  makes 
Elijah  live  for  me.  Here  is  no  dim,  titanic  figure, 
half-hidden  by  the  mists  of  vast  antiquity,  but  a 
brave,  struggling,-  suffering  brother-man.  I  can 
enter  into  his  feelings,  sympathise  with  his  dis- 
tresses, and  even  understand  the  peace  that  came 
to  him  after  that  lonely  night's  vigil  on  Horeb. 
Yes,  I  love  Elijah,  for  in  him  I  see  myself.  I  see 
you  too.  And  I  see  every  man  who  has  ever  had 
anything  to  do  for  God  and  lost  his  true  perspect- 
ive by  over-absorption  in  the  immediate  and  the 
near  outside  the  soul. 

There  is  one  mistake  that  servants  of  truth  are 
always  making,  and  that  is  judging  by  appear- 
ances. We  look  too  much  to  externals,  dwell  too 
much  upon  the  circumference  and  too  little  at  the 
centre  of  things.  In  proportion  to  our  eagerness 
and  self-devotion  is  our  tendency  to  exaggerate  our 
own  importance  to  the  cause  of  God  and  to  waste 
time  in  looking  for  visible  results  of  our  activity. 
There  is  danger,  of  course,  in  the  other  extreme, 
but  it  is  not  so  great  a  danger  as  the  one  we  are 
5 


66  THE    INNER    VOICE 

discussing.  We  belong  to  a  vigorous  race  and  a 
feverish  age.  We  are  always  in  a  turmoil  of  effort, 
and  are  prodigal  of  life  and  energy.  In  fact,  we 
tend  to  despise  the  contemplative  and  to  urge  men 
to  look  for  salvation  in  toilsome  and  tumultuous 
effort  rather  than  in  quiescence  and  solemn  waiting 
upon  God.  I  am  quite  sure  I  am  right  in  saying 
that  there  are  some  of  you  busy  men  before  me 
who  would  be  inclined  to  discount  such  spiritual 
counsels  as  would  tend  to  draw  your  mind  away 
even  for  a  moment  from  the  concrete  and  the  prac- 
tical. What  you  want,  you  would  tell  me,  is  such 
teaching  as  would  help  to  brace  your  moral  ener- 
gies and  render  you  strong  and  assured  in  your 
service  for  the  Kingdom  of  God.  You  are  suspi- 
cious, and  rightly  suspicious,  of  all  mere  religi- 
osity, all  preaching  and  praying  that  issues  in 
subjectivity  and  sentimentality  and  withdraws  the 
soul  from  active  sympathy  with  human  concerns. 
You  would  be  quite  right  in  contending  that 
Christianity  has  suffered  from  this  kind  of  thing 
more  than  from  anything  else,  and  that  even  to- 
day people  contrive  to  reduce  their  religious  life  to 
a  series  of  agreeable  emotions  with  little  or  no 
practical  outcome  in  the  betterment  of  human  life. 
You  would  tell  me  that  in  business  the  man  who 
is  most  fervent  in  his  Christian  devotion  is  no  more 
generous  and  no  more  trustworthy  than  any  one 
else— as  often  as  not  he  is  rather  less  so.  Perhaps, 
therefore,  when  you  come  to  the  City  Temple  you 
do  so  because  you  feel  that  here,  at  least,  the  moral 
imperative  is  kept  well  to  the  fore  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  world's  need  never  lost  sight  of  in 


THE    INNER    VOICE  67 

abstract  propositions  about  the  communion  of  the 
soul  with  God  apart  altogether  from  the  well-being 
of  man. 

I  admit  all  this.  But  has  there  never  been  a 
time  in  your  experience  when  you  have  grown 
baffled  and  weary  with  the  greatness  of  your  tasks 
and  the  smallness  of  your  success  with  them  ? 
Have  you  never  felt  that  you  craved  something 
besides  the  feeling  that  what  you  were  doing  was 
worth  doing  and  that  you  would  prevail  in  the 
end  ?  Have  you  never  had  your  hours  of  deep 
discouragement — yes,  and  your  seasons  of  defeat 
— in  which  you  questioned  with  yourself  whether 
what  you  were  doing  was  worth  doing  after  all  ? 
Like  Elijah,  perhaps,  you  have  played  the  man 
and  done  it  well.  You  have  confronted  King 
Ahab  in  the  full  consciousness  of  rectitude  and 
sincerity  of  purpose.  You  have  even  had  your 
Mount  Carmel,  your  dramatic  stand  for  righteous- 
ness, and  your  hard-won,  stormy  triumph.  You 
fixed  your  eye  upon  a  certain  goal  and  got  there. 
You  have  gained  your  point  in  some  fiercely  con- 
tested conflict  of  interests  in  which  you  have  man- 
aged to  see  justice  don6.  You  have  unmasked 
some  piece  of  cruel  humbug  or  put  to  silence  some 
clamorous  evil.  You  have  put  your  whole  soul 
into  the  cause,  whatever  it  may  be,  which  you  felt 
to  be  yours,  and  your  very  intensity  and  self- 
forgetful  zeal  have  gained  you  a  temporary  victory. 
Then  follows  the  hour  of  disillusionment.  No 
sooner  have  you  driven  an  evil  out  by  one  door 
than  it  returns  by  another.  The  victory  you 
thought  was  going  to  do  everything  turns  out  to 


68  THE    INNER    VOICE 

have  done  nothing;  things  are  no  better  than  they 
were  before — worse,  perhaps. 

It  must  oft  fall  out 
That  one  whose  labour  perfects  any  work 
Shall  rise  from  it  with  eye  so  worn  that  he, 
Of  all  men,  least  can  measure  the  extent 
Of  what  he  has  accomplished. 

But  can  any  one  else  measure  it  either?  Very 
seldom — if  ever.  The  world's  greatest  crises  usu- 
ally take  place  without  the  actors  therein  being 
aware  of  the  fact.  Occasionally  some  outstanding 
genius  flings  his  defiance  in  the  face  of  his  fellows 
and  appeals  to  posterity,  but  as  a  rule  neither  the 
worker  nor  the  onlookers  appreciate  the  true  sig- 
nificance of  what  is  being  done.  And  there  is 
good  reason  for  this.  The  truth  is  that  nothing 
which  takes  place  in  this  world  of  time  and  sense 
really  has  value  in  itself;  it  only  has  value  in  rela- 
tion to  eternity.  It  is  not  what  you  do  that  matters, 
but  what  it  does  in  you.  Judging  by  appearances 
is  therefore  a  false  and  foolish  proceeding  in  which 
no  man  should  ever  indulge.  Success  or  failure 
can  never  be  measured  in  terms  of  the  outward  and 
visible,  but  only  of  the  inward  and  spiritual.  This 
is  the  sense  in  which  we  may  say  every  true  Chris- 
tian has  to  renounce  the  world.  You  can  do  no 
other  if  you  want  to  save  it  or  to  save  your  own 
soul.  It  is  so  natural  to  look  for  God  in  the  cata- 
strophic and  tremendous,  whereas  these  are  no  more 
than  the  froth  blown  up  on  the  cliffs  from  the 
advancing  tide  that  is  gradually  but  surely  wear- 
ing away  their  foundations.  The  Napoleons  and 
Caesars  of  history  bulk  very  large  on  the  field  of 


THE    INNER    VOICE  69 

human  interest.  How  much  do  they  count  for  in 
reality?  They  are  not  forces  in  themselves,  but 
only  the  instruments  of  forces.  They  mean  no 
more  in  the  spiritual  universe  than  a  falling  rock 
or  a  blade  of  grass.  What  seems  great  to  us  may 
be  but  trivial  when  seen  from  the  side  of  God's 
purpose  for  and  in  humanity.  Have  we  ever  had 
a  glimpse  as  to  what  that  purpose  is?  Most 
assuredly.  The  life  of  Jesus  has  not  been  lived  in 
vain,  for  it  has  summed  up  and  brought  to  a  focus 
all  the  stumbling  endeavours  of  prophets  and  saints 
in  ages  past  in  showing  us  that  the  ultimate  goal 
of  human  achievement  is  to  be  the  realisation  of 
a  fellowship  of  love.  Now,  measured  from  this 
standpoint,  what  is  great  and  what  is  small  ?  That 
alone  is  great  which  means  the  release  of  higher 
motives  and  purer  aims  than  can  find  opportunity 
in  the  bondage  of  material  limitation.  The  colos- 
sal figures  on  the  field  of  human  history  are  gener- 
ally only  the  scavengers  of  heaven ;  God's  greatest 
servants  are  those  who  have  put  the  most  love  into 
their  work,  and  therefore  thrust  their  own  person- 
ality farthest  into  the  background.  What  renders 
an  action  of  value  to  God  is  not  its  dramatic  power, 
but  its  spiritual  quality;  the  Lord  is  not  in  the 
earthquake,  wind,  and  fire,  but  in  the  still  small 
voice.  To  become  discouraged  in  any  good  work 
is  not  only  to  forget  this,  but  to  be  in  danger  of 
committing  the  sacrilege  of  mixing  up  our  own 
individual  fortunes  with  the  cause  of  God,  and 
making  the  latter  serve  the  former.  Elijah  thought 
that  when  he  had  butchered  the  priests  of  Baal  he 
had  gained  the  end  for  which  he  had  striven.    Not 


70  THE    INNER    VOICE 

at  all.  The  people  who  helped  him  to  do  it  would 
have  l>utchered  him  too  the  very  next  day ;  they 
were  not  morally  one  whit  better  for  the  deed  of 
blood.  They  had  not  been  converted  to  the  austere 
ideal  of  the  prophet;  they  had  but  swung  to  the 
stronger  side.  So  it  is  to-day.  A  general  election 
takes  place  in  1906,  in  which  the  nation  declares — ■ 
or  so  many  people  think — for  soberness  and  righte- 
ousness. Within  a  few  short  months  we  get  a 
Peckham  contest,  in  which  the  forces  of  hell  seem 
to  run  riot  and  good  men  mourn  that  base  motives, 
cynically  avowed,  have  still  such  enormous  power 
with  the  British  electorate.  Is  it,  then,  really  true 
that  a  verdict  at  the  polls  represents  a  great  moral 
advance  or  its  contrary,  a  moral  set-back  ?  Yes, 
perhaps  to  some  degree  it  does,  but  not  to  the 
extent  that  is  commonly  understood.  The  real 
victory  won  by  Elijah  at  Carmel  was  not  the 
slaughter  of  his  foes,  but  the  moral  intensity  and 
self-devotion  which  had  made  the  meeting  on 
Carmel  possible.  No  smaller  man  could  have  done 
it;  no  meaner  motive  than  unselfish  zeal  for  Israel 
and  Israel's  God  could  have  impressed  the  people 
so  far  that  they  were  even  willing  to  listen  to  him. 
What  happened  on  Carmel  was  of  far  less  moment 
than  what  had  impressed  the  heart  of  Israel  during 
the  years  preceding  in  which  Elijah  had  been  utter- 
ing his  apparently  fruitless  protest  against  the 
national  vice  and  shame.  It  had  been  the  still 
small  voice  all  the  time,  the  divine  voice  that  spoke 
in  the  stirring  conscience  of  the  common  people. 

And  it  can  never  be  different.     What  you  actu- 
ally see  as  the  result  of  your  labour  matters  little, 


THE    INNER    VOICE  71 

if  at  all;  what  does  matter  is  what  you  have  put 
into  the  w^ork.  It  is  that  which  tells,  not  the  human 
recognition  it  has  won,  nor  the  visible  success 
achieved.  In  twenty  years  from  now — in  fifty  at 
the  most — all  the  outward  part  of  what  you  are 
doing  now  will  have  perished.  There  are  some 
kinds  of  work  in  which  the  visible  result  of  your 
labours  may  last  a  little  longer,  but  your  part  in  it 
will  be  forgotten  as  soon  as  you  pass  away.  You 
may  even  be  one  of  the  small  company  whose 
names  are  immortalised  in  the  reverence  of  pos- 
terity because  of  their  achievements,  but  what 
satisfaction  will  that  give  you  ?  No ;  all  that  is 
worth  thinking  about  in  the  task  which  God  has 
put  into  your  hand  to-day  is  the  motive  with  which 
you  do  it.  That  is  a  spiritual  thing,  and,  being 
spiritual,  its  full  equivalent  will  be  yours  when  all 
its  material  embodiment  has  crumbled  into  dust. 
We  are  like  the  toilers  in  the  stokehole  of  a  ship — 
we  have  our  eye  on  the  machinery  all  the  time, 
without  feeling  or  realising  that  our  real  work  is 
to  carry  something  beautiful  to  another  shore.  We 
are  like  the  men  who  work  in  darkness  in  the 
bowels  of  the  earth  to  send  up  light  and  warmth  to 
a  world  above.  I  am  a  convinced  and  earnest 
Socialist,  but  I  am  not  such  a  fool  as  to  imagine 
that  Socialism  can  be  dumped  on  human  nature 
from  without;  it  has  to  be  uttered  from  within.  As 
Mrs.  Philip  Snowden  says,  the  first  and  greatest 
work  in  this  direction  is  the  socialising  of  men  and 
women,  the  socialising  of  thought  and  feeling;  we 
have  to  get  people  to  cease  thinking  in  units.  Kill- 
ing the  priests  of  Baal  will  never  save  society.     I 


72  THE    INNER    VOICE 

do  not  value  service  for  the  poor  merely  because  it 
may  make  their  life  a  little  happier  here.  That  is 
worth  something,  to  be  sure,  and  it  is  a  truly  spirit- 
ual work;  but  there  is  something  farther  and 
greater,  and  that  is  that  with  the  removal  of  the 
fetters  of  ignorance  and  materialism  you  are  doing 
something  to  awaken  the  God  within  the  emanci- 
pated soul.  It  is  worth  something  to  close  public- 
houses  in  the  streets,  but  it  is  worth  more  to  close 
them  in  the  hearts  of  men.  You  may  have  many  a 
hard  fight  before  you  succeed  in  doing  much  for 
the  oppressed  and  downtrodden — it  takes  such  a 
vast  amount  of  energy  to  achieve  even  a  small 
result — but  the  real  effect  is  the  spiritual  equiva- 
lent of  the  consecration  with  which  you  have 
wrought.  You  may  need  the  fire — even  the  earth- 
quake sometimes — but  the  real  purpose  of  all 
worthy  effort  is  to  enable  men  to  hear  the  still 
small  voice  that  tells  of  the  love  that  never  dies. 

You  can  hear  that  voice  now  if  you  will,  and  you 
can  learn  to  listen  for  it  amid  the  roar  and  tumult 
of  every-day  human  affairs.  For  that  voice  is  the 
voice  of  Christ,  the  deeper  Man,  the  God-Man  who 
dwells  within  us  all,  and  whom  nothing  can  ever 
destroy.  When  we  have  crossed  to  the  other  side 
of  the  gulf  that  separates  seen  from  unseen  we 
shall  find  that  nothing  has  ever  mattered  except 
faithfulness  to  that  voice.  Place  does  not  matter 
— one  might  gain  all  the  glory  of  the  world  and 
yet  be  a  stranger  to  one's  own  soul;  fame  and 
station  count  for  nothing  in  that  mysterious  be- 
yond towards  which  we  are  all  hastening ;  the  only 
possession  we  can  carry  there  is  what  we  are.    Can 


THE    INNER    VOICE  73 

we  not  live  now  as  though  our  hearts  were  set  only 
upon  eternal  values  ?  Can  we  not  do  with  our  lives 
now  what  we  would  do  if  \we  knew  for  certain  that 
nothing  shall  live  but  love?  Can  we  not  gaze 
calmly  at  the  destructive  effect  of  earthquake,  wind 
and  fire,  when  we  know  that  the  still  small  voice 
is  whispering,  Well  done,  good  and  faithful  ser- 
vant ?  Above  all,  we  shall  not  be  tempted  to  think 
that  success  or  failure  depend  in  the  least  upon 
what  the  world  can  see. 

Loud  mockers  in  the  roaring  street 

Say  Christ  is  crucified  again  : 
Twice  pierced  His  gospel-bearing  feet, 
Twice  broken  His  great  heart  in  vain. 
I  hear,  and  to  myself  I  smile. 
For  Christ  talks  with  me  all  the  while. 

No  more  unto  the  stubborn  heart 

With  gentle  knocking  shall  He  plead, 
No  more  the  mystic  pity  start, 

For  Christ  twice  dead  is  dead  indeed. 
So  in  the  street  I  hear  men  say. 
Yet  Christ  is  with  me  all  the  day. 


VI 

THE   ROCK  AND  THE   PIT 

"  Hearken  to  me^  ye  that  follow  after  righteousness^ 
ye  that  seek  the  Lord:  look  luito  the  rock  whence  ye 
were  hewn,  a?td  to  the  hole  of  the  pit  whence  ye  were 
digged J^—\'S>h.lh.Yi.  li.  i. 

This  vivid  piece  of  imagery  belongs  to  that 
section  of  the  book  of  Isaiah  which  is  concerned 
mainly  with  the  idea  of  the  "suffering  servant  of 
God."  It  is  one  of  the  grandest  parts  of  the  whole 
Bible,  and  yet  its  exegesis  presents  not  a  few  diffi- 
culties. You  are  all  aware  that  this  interesting 
book  falls  into  two  main  divisions.  The  first 
(chaps,  i.  to  xxxix.)  dates  from  about  the  last 
quarter  of  the  eighth  century  B.C.,  and  represents 
the  work  of  the  great  prophet  Isaiah,  whose  name 
it  bears.  There  are  a  few  isolated  passages  in  it 
which  belong  to  a  later  age,  and  these  are  com- 
paratively easy  to  trace.  But  when  we  come  to  the 
second  half  of  the  book  the  case  is  different. 
Chapter  xl.  opens  with  a  new  note  and  introduces 
us  to  a  new  author,  the  second  Isaiah,  as  he  is 
called,  the  great  prophet  of  the  exile,  whose  work 
it  was  to  herald  the  restoration.  There  is  no  mis- 
taking the  splendid  ring  of  this  man's  message 
beginning  with  the  words,  ''  Comfort  ye,  comfort 
ye  my  people,   saith  your  God."     This  utterance 

74 


THE    ROCK   AND    THE    PIT  75 

can  only  date  from  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century 
B.C.,  and  deals  with  the  return  from  Babylon.  But 
when  we  go  on  to  read  the  later  chapters,  the  ques- 
tion sometimes  arises  whether  we  are  listening  to 
the  same  speaker  dealing  with  the  same  set  of  cir- 
cumstances, or  whether  the  scene  has  shifted  again. 
The  probability  is  that  we  have  several  voices  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  book  of  Isaiah,  and  that  the 
sections  about  the  suffering  servant  are  all  the  work 
of  one  man.  Whether  this  man  was  the  same  as 
the  one  who  gave  us  the  inspiring  fortieth  chapter 
we  cannot  tell,  but  it  is  fairly  certain  that  he  now 
writes  in  Jerusalem  instead  of  Babylon.  There 
are  some  passages  in  which  he  seems  to  speak  of 
the  exodus  from  Babylon  as  yet  to  take  place, 
whereas  in  others  he  describes  the  returned  exiles 
as  being  once  more  at  home  on  Mount  Zion.  This 
is  what  makes  the  exegesis  difficult;  we  are  not 
always  Sure  as  to  whether  Babylon  or  Jerusalem 
is  the  scene  of  the  allusion,  and  to  know  which 
is  meant  would  occasionally  make  the  meaning 
clearer.  It  is  easy  to  see  why,  while  the  Jews  w^ere 
preparing  to  go  forth  from  their  house  of  bondage 
in  the  pagan  city,  their  mood  would  be  one  of  hope 
and  joy.  They  would  picture  the  return  to  their 
distant  highland  home  in  the  most  gorgeous 
colours,  and  would  expect  to  resume  their  national 
life  and  worship  as  though  there  were  no  difficulties 
in  the  way.  But  the  reality  was  far  different  from 
this  dream.  When  they  returned  home  it  was  only 
to  find  Jerusalem  a  waste,  and  the  remnant  of  her 
population  poor,  degraded,  and  half-paganised. 
We  have  to  remember  that  it  was  the  best  of  the 


76  THE    ROCK   AND   THE    PIT 

Jewish  population  which  had  been  carried  away 
into  captivity  many  years  before;  it  was  the  weaker 
elements  that  had  been  left  behind.  Picture  the 
disappointment  of  the  emancipated  prisoners  when 
they  found  the  homeland  a  desert  and  all  their 
sacred  places  lying  in  ruins.  They  were  so  in- 
censed by  the  low  morale  of  their  kinsmen  who 
dwelt  among  these  ruinS  that  they  refused  to  have 
much  to  do  with  them,  and  vigorously  repudiated 
all  those  who  had  contracted  foreign  alliances  or 
proved  untrue  to  their  faith. 

This  was  their  first  disillusionment — the  moral 
'deterioration  of  their  countrymen.  They  had  many 
more  to  face.  Their  Persian  deliverers  had  given 
them  no  effective  protection  against  their  foes,  such 
as  the  Edomites  and  other  surrounding  peoples, 
who  now  gathered  against  them,  and  strove  to 
prevent  the  re-erection  of  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  as 
w^ell  as  the  Temple.  For  this  interesting  chapter 
of  Jewish  history  read  the  books  of  Ezra  and  Nehe- 
miah ;  these  serve  to  show  how  the  people  were 
feeling  at  this  discouraging  time.  They  had  come 
home  full  of  enthusiasm,  believing  that  all  their 
ancient  glories  were  immediately  to  be  restored. 
When  they  saw  how  things  really  were  they  lost 
heart,  and  it  was  not  until  many  years  after  the 
restoration  that  any  progress  was  made  with  the 
rebuilding  of  Jerusalem.  Perhaps  it  is  this  period 
of  depression  to  which  our  text  refers.  I  wish  we 
knew  for  certain,  for,  as  you  can  immediately 
realise,  the  fact  would  make  some  difference  to  the 
bearing  of  the  exhortation.  If  these  words  were 
uttered  in  Babylon,  just  before  the  Jews  started  for 


THE    ROCK    AND   THE    PIT  77 

home,  they  would  be  spoken  to  men  rejoicing  in 
their  new-found  freedom  and  cherishing  the  most 
glowing  anticipations  as  to  the  future.  If  this  were 
so,  the  meaning  of  the  sentence  would  be  somewhat 
as  follows:  "You  are  now  going  forth  from  a 
pagan  city  as  Abraham  went  forth  ages  ago  from 
among  the  ancestors  of  these  very  Chaldeans.  He 
went  alone,  but  God  was  with  him  and  made  him 
prosperous  and  strong.  He  went  because  he  wanted 
to  serve  God  in  a  higher  way  than  was  possible 
amid  heathen  corruption  and  restriction.  Do  as  he 
did,  and  you  shall  be  blessed  and  increased  in  the 
land  of  your  fathers."  It  has  been  surmised  that 
if  the  rock  is  a  figure  for  Abraham,  the  pit  is  a 
figure  for  Sarah,  the  traditional  ancestress  of  Israel. 
This  may  be  so,  but  the  figure  is  even  more  applic- 
able to  the  Chaldeans,  from  w^hom  Abraham  was 
supposed  to  have  sprung.  This  race  inherited  a 
low-lying  territory  around  the  Persian  Gulf — hence, 
perhaps,  the  allusion  to  **  the  hole  of  the  pit  whence 
ye  were  digged." 

But  somehow  I  do  not  think  these  words  were 
spoken  on  the  great  occasion  thus  described.  You 
will  admit  from  what  I  have  just  said  that,  even  if 
they  were,  they  would  make  quite  good  sense  and 
contain  an  inspiring  message,  but  I  think  the  mes- 
sage is  greater  and  more  helpful  if  we  regard  it  as 
having  been  uttered  to  the  returned  exiles  in  Jeru- 
salem during  the  period  of  discouragement  which 
followed  that  home-coming.  I  think  I  see  some- 
thing here  of  most  fascinating  interest  and  suggest- 
iveness.  These  old  prophets  of  Israel  were  adepts 
in  the  use  of  what  may  be  termed  double  imagery ; 


78  THE    ROCK   AND   THE    PIT 

they  would  employ  a  figure  in  two  different  senses 
at  one  and  the  same  moment.  It  is  obvious,  for 
instance,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  that  the 
rock  here  stands  for  Abraham,  as  the  next  sentence 
proves:  "Look  unto  Abraham  your  father,"  etc. 
But  is  it  not  also  an  allusion  to  Mount  Zion?  In 
the  one  case,  therefore,  it  is  a  reminder  of  the 
spiritual  ancestry  of  the  Jewish  people,  and,  in 
the  other,  of  their  national  history.  Just  look  at 
these  two,  and  look  how  illuminating  they  are. 
According  to  Jewish  tradition,  Abraham  had  been 
a  man  of  altogether  exceptional  force  of  character 
and  religious  insight.  He  had  been  brought  up 
amid  surroundings  which  were  not  at  all  likely  to 
produce  a  monotheistic  faith.  The  only  worship 
with  which  he  was  acquainted  was  of  a  degrading 
and  sensual  kind,  sometimes  accompanied  by 
human  sacrifices.  In  order  to  break  away  from 
this  he  had  to  break  away  from  his  kinsfolk  alto- 
gether. He  had  courage  and  strength  enough  to 
do  this  and  to  trust  his  destiny  to  God.  Only  a 
quite  exceptional  man  could  ever  have  taken  such 
a  course.  Remember,  I  am  neither  affirming  nor 
denying  the  truth  of  the  legend;  I  am  only  recall- 
ing later  Israelitish  belief  concerning  it.  A  man 
like  Abraham  could  fitly  be  termed  a  rock;  and 
this,  says  the  prophet,  was  the  rock  from  which 
the  Jewish  people  had  been  hewn. 

This  was  their  stock,  their  origin,  and  the  reason 
for  their  existence.  It  was  a  great  thing  to  say. 
Although  they  had  fallen  on  evil  days,  and  seemed 
to  have  lost  their  moral  vigour,  there  was  no  reason 
to  believe  that  it  need  be  so  for  ever.    The  lineage 


THE    ROCK   AND   THE    PIT  79 

of  Abraham  could  yet  do  great  things  in  the  world 
under  the  favour  and  direction  of  Abraham's  God. 
Is  not  this  the  meaning  of  the  exhortation,  more 
than  once  repeated  in  the  sections  which  follow  : 
''  Awake,  awake,  put  on  thy  strength,  O  Zion ;  put 
on  thy  beautiful  garments,  O  Jerusalem,  the  Holy 
City.  .  .  .  Shake  thyself  from  the  dust;  arise,  sit 
thee  down,  O  Jerusalem ;  loose  thyself  from  the 
bands  of  thy  neck,  O  captive  daughter  of  Zion  "  ? 
Now  take  the  other  meaning  of  the  figure.  Jeru- 
salem was  built  upon  a  rock,  and  her  poets  and 
prophets  loved  to  sing  about  their  holy  mountain 
where  God  dwelt.  To  them  this  mountain  used  to 
be  a  symbol  for  the  stability  and  permanence  of 
the  nation  itself  under  the  blessing  of  God.  "  They 
that  trust  in  the  Lord  are  as  Mount  Zion,  which 
cannot  be  removed."  Israel  had  a  long  history  to 
look  back  upon,  a  history  full  of  glorious  deliver- 
ances and  splendid  achievements.  It  was  thus 
quite  natural  for  these  people  of  Jehovah  to  think 
of  their  covenant  with  Him  as  the  rock  upon  which 
their  national  life  was  built,  just  as  Mount  Zion  was 
the  seat  of  their  city  and  their  temple.  When  the 
hour  of  disaster  came,  when  city  and  temple  were 
laid  in  ruins,  and  the  flow^er  of  the  population 
massacred  or  carried  away  into  captivity,  it  must 
have  seemed  at  first  as  though  the  very  foundations 
of  Mount  Zion  had  been  shattered.  Babylon,  the 
cruel  city  of  the  plains,  was  a  very  pit  of  hell  to 
these  homesick  highlanders.  Then  came  the  de- 
liverance, and  now  they  were  home  again,  sitting 
disconsolate  in  the  dust  and  ashes  of  their  former 
glory.     It  is  at  this  moment  that  the  prophet  re- 


8o  THE    ROCK   AND   THE    PIT 

minds  them  of  their  past  in  such  a  way  as  to  rouse 
them  to  new  effort.  In  substance  his  appeal  is  as 
follows:  "Remember,  this  is  Mount  Zion,  where 
your  fathers  used  to  look  upon  the  face  of  God. 
You  were  hewn  away  from  it  by  the  terrible  hand 
of  the  Chaldasan  invader.  God  placed  you  at  his 
mercy  because  of  your  sins,  but  He  did  not  leave 
you  desolate  and  forsaken.  He  lifted  you  out  of 
the  horrible  pit  and  the  miry  clay,  and  has  placed 
your  feet  upon  this  rock  once  more.  Think  of  it. 
This  is  holy  ground;  while  you  are  here  you  can 
reaffirm  your  ancient  covenant  with  God.  If  He 
has  delivered  you  from  Babylon  surely  He  can  do 
more.  Set  to  work  at  once  to  recover  all  you  have 
lost.  Recall  the  glorious  past,  and  see  to  it  that 
you  have  a  still  more  glorious  future  in  living 
union  with  your  fathers'  God." 

This  seems  to  me  almost  indisputably  to  have 
been  the  true  bearing  of  the  exhortation  contained 
in  our  text,  and  I  hope  you  will  not  think  that  the 
time  spent  in  examining  it  has  been  wasted;  it  is 
always  helpful  to  see  just  how  a  great  sentence  like 
this  came  into  being,  and  what  it  meant  to  those 
who  first  heard  it.  It  could  not  fail  to  be  an  inspir- 
ing influence  to  these  discouraged  Jews  who  were 
sitting  mourning  amid  the  failure  of  their  hopes 
and  the  disappointment  of  their  expectations.  It 
is  quite  reasonable  to  suppose  that  it  had  something 
to  do  with  the  after  success  of  Nehemiah  and  his 
friends,  who  set  to  work  like  heroes  and  rebuilt  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem,  with  trowel  in  one  hand  and 
sword  in  the  other.  It  was  a  magnificent  task, 
magnificently  accomplished. 


THE    ROCK   AND    THE    PIT  8i 

How  human  it  all  is  I  and  how  closely  it  re- 
sembles certain  situations  with  which  we  are  more 
or  less  familiar  every  day  of  our  lives  !  We  are 
constantly  finding  ourselves  in  scenes  and  emer- 
gencies wherein  we  need  to  be  reminded  of  the 
rock  whence  we  were  hewn  and  the  hole  of  the  pit 
whence  we  were  digged.  We  need  to  think  of  both 
in  order  that  we  may  understand  who  and  what  we 
are  and  to  accomplish  anything  worth  doing  in  this 
world.  The  rock  whence  we  were  hewn  is  God; 
the  pit  whence  we  were  digged  is  animalism.  We 
are  here  to  build  the  holy  city,  new  Jerusalem,  and 
our  hope  for  the  future  lies  in  our  knowledge  of  our 
past.  Ponder  what  this  means,  and  see  whether 
there  is  not  something  in  it  that  will  put  heart  into 
you  this  very  day  and  enable  you  to  grasp  your 
sword  and  trowel  with  a  new  courage  and  a  stronger 
faith.  Who  and  what  are  you?  The  materialist 
would  settle  the  matter  by  saying  that  you  are  of 
the  earth  earthy ;  you  belong  to  the  dust,  and  unto 
the  dust  you  must  return ;  that  was  the  beginning 
and  that  will  be  the  end.  Your  ancestors  were 
monstrous  reptiles  sporting  in  primeval  slime — 
your  origin,  you  see,  is  not  exalted.  Your  forbears 
may  have  come  over  with  the  Conqueror,  but  they 
were  also  first  cousins  to  the  earth-worm  and  the 
crocodile ;  this  reflection  ought  to  humble  you  when 
you  are  inclined  to  think  too  much  of  yourself. 
When  you  feel  the  tide  of  animal  passion  surging 
through  your  veins,  be  aware  that  it  is  the  same 
force  which  controls  the  energies  of  the  ape,  the 
tiger,  and  the  swine.  You  and  they  have  not  only 
a  common  heritage  but  a  common  instinct;  their 
6 


82  THE    ROCK   AND   THE    PIT 

blind  impulses  are  much  the  same  as  yours,  and 
you  can  no  more  escape  their  dominance  than  they. 
The  man  who  talks  like  that  is  not  necessarily  a 
pessimist,  nor  is  he  wide  of  the  truth,  but  he  sees 
no  farther  than  the  hole  of  the  pit  whence  he  was 
digged ;  he  has  never  lifted  his  gaze  to  the  rock 
whence  he  was  hewn.  And  yet  even  the  facts  of 
human  nature  and  the  lessons  of  human  history 
ought  to  lead  him  to  do  so.  After  all,  the  worm 
is  not  the  man ;  there  is  something  else  to  be  taken 
into  account,  and  it  is  that  something  else  which 
marks  him  a  son  of  God.  Human  history  is  a  sad 
chapter  of  crime  and  folly,  but  its  darkest  page  has 
not  been  without  some  gleams  of  a  divine  splen- 
dour which  tells  of  a  higher  origin  than  the 
primeval  slime. 

Trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 
From  God  who  is  our  home. 

'*  Oh,  but,"  some  one  may  remonstrate,  '*  this  is 
mere  gratuitous  assumption.  How  do  you  know 
that  of  which  you  speak?  Why  repudiate  your 
humble  beginnings,  seeing  that  you  cannot  demon- 
strate the  actuality  of  any  other  kind  of  beginning  ? 
You  must  not  try  any  longer  to  foist  upon  an  in- 
credulous world  some  fairy  story  about  a  Garden 
of  Eden  and  an  immaculate  humanity,  facts  are 
facts,  however  unpalatable,  and  we  have  no  other 
facts  to  go  upon  than  those  which  science  has 
slowly  and  laboriously  extracted  from  Nature's 
records  of  the  past."  Well,  I  know  that;  but  I 
know  something  else  too,  and  so  do  you.  I  do  not 
deny  the  hole  of  the  pit,  but  I  believe  in  the  rock 


THE    ROCK   AND    THE    PIT  83 

whence  we  were  hewn  before  ever  we  made  acquaint- 
ance with  the  pit.  Love,  truth,  the  splendour  of 
moral  achievement,  the  glory  of  self-sacrifice,  the 
sweetness  of  communion  with  that  which  is  too 
high  to  find  adequate  expression  in  this  world,  the 
joy  and  thrill  of  seeing  beyond  material  good  to 
that  ineffable  somewhat  at  whose  call  the  spiritual 
man  will  surrender  all  the  desires  of  the  flesh  and 
the  satisfactions  of  earthly  existence — these  are 
realities  as  irrefutable  as  any  with  which  science 
has  ever  been  called  upon  to  deal ;  and,  what  is 
more,  you  believe  it.  You  reverence  these  more 
than  you  do  aught  that  is  merely  material,  and  in 
so  doing  you  share  with  all  w^hose  opinion  is  worth 
taking  into  account.  The  world  knows  what  is 
truly  great  if  once  it  has  been  made  to  see  it. 
Whence  came  these  things?  Does  the  hole  of  the 
pit  account  for  them  ?  No,  indeed;  they  must  have 
gone  into  it  before  they  could  be  dug  out  of  it. 
No  one  denies  that  they  did  come  out  of  it,  but 
how  did  they  get  there?  They  are  the  tokens  of 
your  (Jivine  lineage.  The  very  fact  that  you  have 
been  lifted  out  of  the  horrible  pit  and  the  miry 
clay  and  made  to  reach  out  your  hand  among  the 
stars  is  evidence  of  an  origin  that  preceded  the  pit 
and  speaks  of  a  world  in  which  your  angel  doth 
always  behold  the  face  of  the  Father. 

We  are  children  of  splendour  and  flame, 

Of  shuddering  also  and  tears  ; 
Magnificent,  out  of  the  dust  we  came, 

And  abject  from  the  spheres. 

No,  the  hole  of  the  pit  does  not  account  for  you, 
and  yet  it  is  helpful  to  look  back  to  it  and  down 


84  THE    ROCK    AND   THE    PIT 

into  its  fearsome  depths.  We  have  to  ask  our- 
selves what  it  was  that  could  bring  forth  from  that 
dark  and  mysterious  womb  the  humanity  of  to-day. 
What  infinite  pain  and  struggle  it  has  cost !  And 
it  is  not  over  yet.  "  The  whole  creation  groaneth 
and  travaileth  in  pain  together  until  now,  waiting 
for  the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God."  But 
the  hand  that  has  accomplished  so  much  must  be 
able  to  work  greater  wonders  still.  Yes,  indeed 
it  is  worth  while  to  look  to  the  hole  of  the  pit 
whence  we  were  digged,  for  to  do  so  inspires  us 
with  hope  and  courage  for  the  height  that  is  yet 
to  be  climbed.  To  have  come  as  far  as  we  have  is 
assurance  that  we  can  go  farther;  our  present  halt- 
ing place  is  only  a  stage  on  the  road  to  a  greater 
glory.  But  from  where  we  now  stand  we  are  able 
to  see  something  of  the  meaning  and  the  purpose 
of  it  all,  and  to  feel  ourselves  akin  to  that  eternal 
mind  which  conceived  it  and  will  carry  it  to  fruition. 
You  cannot  see  a  snow-clad  peak  from  the  bottom 
of  a  coal  mine.  You  need  to  get  out,  and,  better 
still,  ascend  some  further  eminence  before  the  full 
strength  and  splendour  burst  upon  your  vision. 
That  is  what  we  are  doing  now.  God  has  brought 
us  up  out  of  the  pit;  we  are  climbing  the  hill  of  the 
Lord;  in  the  end  we  shall  stand  in  His  holy  place 
and  know  as  we  are  known.  But  we  know  enough 
even  now  to  be  able  to  recognise  the  rock  whence 
we  were  hewn.  Christ  has  shown  us  God  in  show- 
ing us  the  greatness  of  man.  We  see  that  it  was 
well  that  there  ever  had  to  be  a  descent  of  the 
divine  essence  into  the  pit  and  the  clay,  that  the 
grandeur  of  the  home-coming  of  the  sons  of  light 


THE    ROCK   AND   THE    PIT  85 

might  be  ours.  I  think  in  the  great  day  of  revela- 
tion we  shall  all  say  so.  I  would  rather  have  been 
God's  warrior  on  the  stricken  field  than  enjoy  the 
eternal  delights  of  a  heaven  that  had  never  known 
either  struggle  or  pain.  We  can  only  understand 
the  rock  whence  we  were  hewn  by  realising  the  hole 
of  the  pit  whence  we  were  digged. 

There  are  a  thousand  different  ways  in  which  this 
magnificent  truth  can  help  us  in  our  daily  life.  Let 
me  tell  you  one.  At  this  moment  I  may  be  address- 
ing some  man  or  woman  into  whose  life  tragedy 
has  come  because  the  power  of  the  pit  is  still  great. 
Its  effects  may  be  felt  in  your  own  character  or  in 
that  of  some  one  else ;  but  in  either  case  they  have 
resulted  in  much  shame  and  sorrow.  Do  we  not 
all  know  of  cases  in  which  some  man  of  unquestion- 
able goodness  and  uprightness  is  suddenly  over- 
thrown by  some  temptation  to  which  he  is  exposed 
in  an  hour  of  weakness  ?  The  strangest  inconsist- 
encies and  even  contradictions  are  brought  to  light 
in  this  way.  The  same  man  may  behave  like  a 
hero  at  one  time  and  a  felon  at  another.  The  man 
whom  you  thought  to  be  strong  turns  out  to  be 
pitiably  weak.  Some  one  who  was  to  you  an  in- 
spiration and  an  example  in  earlier  days  unaccount- 
ably deteriorates  as  years  go  on  and  finally  becomes 
a  moral  wreck.  It  is  a  curious  and  puzzling  thing 
that  magnanimity  and  meanness,  frankness  and 
cunning,  sweetness  and  spite,  truth  and  falsehood, 
generosity  and  covetousness,  lovableness  and  un- 
scrupulous selfishness,  can  co-exist  in  the  same 
nature.  We  sometimes  ask  ourselves  in  astonish- 
ment. Can  this  be  the  same  man  ?     Is  he  a  hypo- 


86  THE    ROCK   AND   THE    PIT 

crite  ?  Which  is  the  true  man,  for  surely  both  can- 
not be  true  ?  Probably  we  are  quite  wrong  in  our 
judgments.  Human  nature  is  a  strange  medley,  and, 
impossible  though  it  may  seem,  the  god  and  the 
brute  are  often  not  very  far  apart  within  the  same 
soul.  Is  there  any  man  in  this  congregation  at 
this  moment  who  is  not  conscious  of  tendencies 
and  impulses  within  himself  which  would  work  his 
moral  overthrow  if  they  were  not  kept  well  in 
hand?  The  volcano  is  always  there,  even  though 
the  fire  may  never  be  Seen.  Are  we  not  only  too 
familiar  with  the  sad  and  intractable  cases  in  which 
an  individual  seems  foredoomed  to  go  wrong? 
Within  the  very  same  family  circle  one  lad  will  be 
his  parents'  joy  and  pride,  while  another  exhibits 
from  childhood  vicious  characteristics  which  lead 
to  disgrace  and  ruin  in  maturer  life.  We  may  sum 
up  the  matter  by  saying  that  even  the  best  of  men 
are  conscious  of  the  presence  of  the  power  of  the 
pit,  the  qualities  which  we  share  with  the  brute 
creation.  Sometimes  these  qualities  obtain  the 
mastery  all  in  a  moment,  to  the  surprise  of  the 
w^orld ;  in  others  they  seem  dominant  from  the  first, 
and  inevitably  produce  the  moral  degenerate. 
What  is  the  gospel  for  this  problem,  if  there  be  a 
gospel  ? 

Well,  here  it  is.  As  I  said  on  Thursday  morn- 
ing, the  very  same  force  which,  misdirected,  will 
drive  a  man  to  the  devil  will  raise  him  to  the 
stature  of  a  god.  You  sometimes  hear  of  the 
sudden  conversion  of  a  man  of  evil  life  and  the 
thoroughness  of  the  change.  The  truth  is  that  the 
old  force  receives  a  new  direction  and  is  governed 


THE    ROCK   AND    THE    PIT  87 

by  a  new  spirit.  Graft  an  apple-tree  on  a  thorn- 
bush,  and  the  old  root  will  supply  the  sap  and 
savour  of  the  new  fruit.  The  same  is  true  of  human 
nature.  There  is  no  quality  or  tendency  of  our 
being  which  is  radically  and  intrinsically  bad;  it 
is  good  or  bad  only  in  its  manifestations.  If  you 
want  to  save  a  man  get  him  to  see  this.  Get  him  to 
understand  that  all  the  force  he  possesses  is  divine. 
Bid  him  look  to  the  rock  whence  he  was  hewn  as 
well  as  to  the  hole  of  the  pit  to  which  he  seems  to 
belong.  Make  him  know  that  although  the  pit  has 
still  some  power  to  hold  him,  the  power  that  lifts  is 
greater  still.  Do  not  permit  him  to  sit  down  in 
despair  amid  the  ruins  and  ashes  of  his  worthier 
hopes  and  achievements.  Cry  to  him  to  shake 
himself  from  the  dust  and  put  on  his  beautiful 
garments.  Beneath  all  moral  weakness  is  a  divine 
strength  to  be  called  upon.  Within  every  soul  is 
a  latent  manhood  which  is  the  very  life  of  God,  a 
rock  of  spiritual  strength  whose  foundations  are 
eternal.  Paul  says  that  that  rock  was  with  Israel 
in  the  wilderness,  and  he  calls  it  Christ — the  God 
in  man.  You  are  not  of  the  pit,  but  the  holy 
mountain.  You  may  have  been  in  the  pit,  but 
nothing  can  hold  you  there  if  once  you  realise 
whence  you  came  and  what  you  are.  And  if  you 
are  out  of  the  pit,  what  folly  to  believe  that  your 
future  is  only  to  be  one  of  weeping  and  discourage- 
ment amid  the  waste  places  of  Jerusalem  !  "  Build 
ye  the  walls  of  Zion,"  sword  in  one  hand  and 
trowel  in  the  other  !  Believe  in  the  highest,  not 
only  as  above  but  as  within,  and  it  shall  be  to  you 
a  rock  of  salvation.     When  you  look  into  the  pit, 


88  THE    ROCK   AND    THE    PIT 

let  it  be  to  praise  God  that  you  have  had  something 

to  strive  for  and  something  to  win,  and  never  suffer 

yourself  to  doubt  for  a  moment  that  the  victory 

of  yesterday  assures  the  triumph  of  to-morrow.     A 

Httle  while  ago  Mr.  A.  G.  Hales,  the  famous  war 

correspondent  and   novelist,    sent  me  a  few  lines 

written  by  him  (apropos  of  one  of  my  sermons,  I 

think)  on  the  point  we  are  now  discussing.     I  do 

not   know   that  they  were   ever   published,   but   I 

dare  say  the  author  will  not  mind  my  quoting  one 

stanza  from  them,  as  it  is  an  admirable  Summing 

up  of  what   I    have  been   trying   to   enforce   this 

morning  : 

By  the  fireside   sadly  dreaming,  tired   of  work  and  tired   of 

scheming  : 
Life's  a  coloured  bubble  filled  with  air. 

Vain  is  all  the  bitter  fighting,  vain  the  cruel  savage  smiting, 
Vain  the  triumph  and  despair. 

Every  cradle   calls  this   query  till   the  whirling  brain   grows 

weary, 
What  was  man  before  his  mortal  birth? 
Equal   here  stand   clown  and  teacher,    saint    and    sage   and 

gutter  preacher  ; 
Mystery  fills  the  earth. 

Stand  them  gently  side  by  side,  like   gaunt   grey  bridegroom 

by  fair  young  bride, 
Crowing  cradle  and  silent  shell. 
Then  bow  the  knee  in   silent  trust  that  human  dust  is  07ily 

dust — 
Believing  all  is  well. 

Yes,  all  is  well,  not  in  spite  of  the  pit  and  the  clay, 
but  because  of  them.  Through  these  we  ascend  to 
that  from  whence  we  came,  having  achieved  what 
we  are — not  dust,  but  God. 


VII 
THE   SOCIAL  JUDGMENT 

^^  Prepare  to  7neet  thy  God,  0  Israel."— Kuo^  iv.  12. 

A  FEW  days  ago  I  was  preaching  in  a  mining 
centre  in  the  Rhondda  Valley  in  South  Wales,  a 
place  where  the  inhabitants  take  their  religion  very 
seriously.  As  I  left  the  railway  station  L  found  a 
number  of  people  in  the  streets  carrying  banners 
inscribed  with  texts,  and  was  informed  that  these 
were  a  protest  against  my  presence.  When  I 
reached  the  hall  where  the  service  was  to  be  held  a 
zealous  lady  lowered  her  banner  so  that  the  words 
upon  it  should  come  immediately  before  my  eyes. 
I  could  not  have  avoided  reading  them  even  if  I 
had  wished  to  do  so.  There  in  large  white  letters 
upon  a  red  ground  was  the  minatory  exhortation, 
"  Prepare  to  meet  thy  God."  I  suppose  the  action 
was  intended  for  my  benefit,  and  the  good  soul 
who  performed  it  evidently  thought  I  stood  in  need 
of  it.  But  it  set  me  thinking.  I  recollected  that 
among  the  tons  of  religious  literature — principally 
tracts  and  sermons — which  are  showered  upon  me 
by  every  post,  this  text  always  occupies  a  promi- 
nent place.  It  seems  to  be  a  favourite.  Evidently 
the  senders  are  firmly  possessed  by  the  conviction 
that  I   am  a  very  wicked  person,   living  in  open 

89 


90  THE    SOCIAL   JUDGMENT 

defiance  of  the  Almighty,  and  that  things  are 
going  to  be  made  unpleasant  for  me  by  and  by 
unless  I  mend  my  ways.  Occasionally  in  the  epistles 
which  accompany  the  text  one  detects  an  element 
of  satisfaction  at  the  prospect.  Perhaps  it  would 
be  too  much  to  say  that  some  of  the  senders  appear 
to  be  rejoicing  at  what  they  suppose  is  about  to 
overtake  me.  It  does  not  seem  to  enter  their  heads 
that  this  biblical  sentence  may  mean  something 
rather  different  from  the  post  mortem  punishment 
of  an  unfaithful  preacher.  I  may  be  as  bad  as  these 
well-meaning  people  imagine  me  to  be,  or  even 
worse,  but  my  charter  of  condemnation  is  not  con- 
tained in  this  passage.  Here  is  no  suggestion  con- 
cerning a  future  hell,  or  a  scheme  of  salvation,  or 
the  importance  of  availing  oneself  of  the  merits  of 
a  Redeemer,  or  anything  of  that  kind;  in  fact,  in 
some  respects  it  is  much  more  interesting  and  much 
nearer  to  what  we  know  of  human  life.  In  its  bear- 
ing it  is  not  individualistic  at  all,  but  national.  It 
has  no  reference  to  the  world  to  come,  but  solely 
to  this  one.  It  assumes  a  state  of  things  with 
which  civilisation  is  only  too  familiar  at  the  present 
day,  and  the  warning  it  presents  is  just  as  applic- 
able to  us  as  to  the  people  who  first  heard  it. 

Will  you  allow  me  to  show  you,  as  briefly  as  I 
can,  how  this  is  ?  It  is  my  custom  to  devote  more 
time  to  the  exegesis  of  a  text  than  most  preachers 
do,  but  I  hope  not  unprofitably.  If  you  want  to 
understand  the  present,  study  the  past.  It  is 
always  helpful  to  know,  as  far  as  it  can  be  ascer- 
tained, exactly  what  the  author  of  any  biblical  say- 
ing meant  by  it,  and  what  people  were  saying  and 


THE    SOCIAL    JUDGMENT  91 

thinking  about  it  at  the  time.  It  will  often  be 
found  that  the  utterance  is  greater  in  its  implica- 
tions than  the  author  Himself  knew,  but  it  is  not 
right  to  read  into  it  something  essentially  different 
from  that  which  was  in  his  mind. 

Now,  who  was  this  man  Amos,  and  what  made 
him  use  this  language?  Here  is  a  bit  of  interest- 
ing human  history  for  you.  This  Amos  was  a 
herdsman  and  fruit-grower  who  took  to  preaching 
about  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century  B.C.  At 
this  time  the  land  of  Israel  had  become  two  king- 
doms. Amos  probably  belonged  to  the  south,  but 
his  preaching  was  mostly  concerned  with  the  north, 
mainly  because  it  was  the  richer  and  more  powerful 
of  the  two.  This  was  a  period  of  unexampled 
material  prosperity  for  the  northern  kingdom  of 
Israel.  It  was  not  a  country  of  great  natural 
resources  in  itself,  but  it  lay  on  the  main  trading 
route  between  Assyria,  on  the  one  hand,  and  Egypt 
on  the  other.  It  was  therefore  rapidly  growing 
wealthy,  and  had  produced  an  order  of  great 
merchant  princes.  The  descendants  of  Abraham 
have  always  been  remarkable  for  their  money- 
making  abilities,  and  perhaps  the  geographical 
situation  of  their  country  may  have  had  something 
to  do  with  fostering  their  tendencies  in  this  respect. 
The  immediate  result  of  this  increase  of  prosperous 
intercourse  with  foreign  nations  was  an  outburst 
of  luxury  and  vice.  If  you  want  to  read  an  elo- 
quent description  of  this  refer  to  the  first  Isaiah, 
the  great  prophet  and  statesman  who  succeeded 
Amos.  It  appears  that,  as  usual,  the  concentra- 
tion of  great  wealth  in  a  few  hands  tended  towards 


92  THE    SOCIAL   JUDGMENT 

the  oppression  of  the  many.  Slavery  grew  rapidly; 
there  were  crowds  of  foreign  slaves  in  the  palaces 
of  the  nobles,  while  the  freemen  of  Israel  were 
being  reduced  to  the  position  of  serfs  on  the  land 
they  had  formerly  owned.  These  palaces  must  have 
been  enormous  structures  replete  with  everything 
that  could  minister  to  the  senses.  They  were  often 
built  of  marble  and  inlaid  with  ivory  and  gold. 
The  women  of  the  wealthier  classes  seem  to  have 
become  demoralised  and  heartless,  as  we  are  told 
some  of  their  modern  representatives  are  to-day. 
Religion  was  punctiliously  attended  to,  but  was 
almost  completely  divorced  from  morality,  as  has 
often  been  the  case.  The  priests  accommodated 
themselves  to  the  manners  of  the  time,  and  taught 
that  Jehovah  was  the  God  of  Israel  only,  and  that 
the  national  prosperity  was  a  token  of  His  favour. 
They  said  that  He  was  to  be  served  by  ritual  and 
sacrifice,  which  meant,  of  course,  that  the  priestly 
order  was  to  be  maintained  in  comfort  and  con- 
sideration. It  was  just  like  what  took  place  in  the 
history  of  Catholic  Christianity  many  centuries 
later,  when  rascally  kings  and  nobles  gave  large 
endowments  to  the  Church  in  order  to  keep,  as 
they  supposed,  in  favour  with  God. 

This,  then,  was  the  situation  in  ancient  Israel  at 
the  time  when  my  text  was  written.  The  service 
of  God  had  become  idolatry.  The  worshippers 
believed  that  God  was  their  God  much  in  the  same 
way  as  though  He  were  their  feudal  lord.  It  was 
His  business  to  look  after  them  and  to  secure  to 
them  material  enjoyment  and  victory  over  their 
enemies;   they,   on   their  part,   had  to  endow   His 


THE    SOCIAL   JUDGMENT  93 

sanctuaries  and  be  careful   to  observe   His  feasts 
and  sacrifices.     This  was  what  brought  Amos  into 
the  open.     He  had  received  no  training  either  as 
prophet  or  priest,  but  as  no  one  else  would  speak 
he  felt  he  must.    There  is  one  vivid  interpolation  in 
the  seventh  chapter  which  "gives  his  own  account 
of  himself  and  how  he  fell  foul  of  the  priesthood. 
''Then   Amaziah,    the   priest   of   Beth-el,    sent   to 
Jeroboam,  king  of  Israel,  saying,  Amos  hath  con- 
spired against  thee  in  the  midst  of  the  house  of 
Israel ;  the  land  is  not  able  to  bear  all  his  words.  .  .  . 
Then  answered  Amos,  and  said  to  Amaziah,  I  was 
no  prophet,  neither  was  I  a  prophet's  son;  but  I 
was  an  herdman,  and  a  gatherer  of  sycamore  fruit. 
And  the  Lord  took  me  as  I  followed  the  flock,  and 
the  Lord  said  unto  me,   Go,   prophesy  unto  My 
people  Israel."     The  burden  of  his  message  was 
sure  to  be  unpopular,   for   it  was  a  prophecy  of 
doom  and  destruction.     He  declared  that  no  nation 
could   stand  which   had   trampled   on   justice   and 
right  as  this  nation  was  doing.     It  would  be  over- 
thrown and  blotted  out.     Listen  to  the  following 
fragment  of  his  preaching  and  you  will  catch  the 
spirit  of  the  whole.     "  And  I  will  smite  the  winter 
house  with  the  summer  house;  and  the  houses  of 
ivory  shall  perish,  and  the  great  houses  shall  have 
an  end,  saith  the  Lord.     Hear  this  word,  ye  kine 
of  Bashan,  that  are  in  the  mountain  of  Samaria, 
which  oppress  the  poor,   which  crush  the  needy, 
which  say  to  their  masters,  Bring,  and  let  us  drink. 
(Amos  here  anticipates  Father  Bernard  Vaughan. 
These  kine  of  Bashan,  as  he  contemptuously  terms 
them,  were  the  loose  and  dissolute  women  of  the 


94  THE    SOCIAL   JUDGMENT 

Court  and  wealthier  classes.)  ...  I  hate,  I  despise 
your  feast  days,  and  I  will  not  smell  in  your  solemn 
assemblies.  Though  ye  offer  Me  burnt  offerings 
and  your  meat  offerings,  I  will  not  accept  them  : 
neither  will  I  regard  the  peace  offerings  of  your  fat 
beasts.  Take  thou  away  from  Me  the  noise  of  thy 
songs;  for  I  will  not  hear  the  melody  of  thy  viols. 
But  let  judgment  run  down  as  waters,  and  right- 
eousness as  a  mighty  stream.  .  .  .  Hear  this,  O  ye 
that  swallow  up  the  needy,  even  to  make  the  poor 
of  the  land  to  fail.  Saying,  When  will  the  new 
moon  be  gone,  that  we  may  sell  corn?  and  the 
sabbath,  that  we  may  set  forth  wheat,  making  the 
ephah  small,  and  the  shekel  great,  and  falsifying 
the  balances  by  deceit?  That  we  may  buy  the 
poor  for  silver,  and  the  needy  for  a  pair  of  shoes; 
yea,  and  sell  the  refuse  of  the  wheat?  The  Lord 
hath  sworn  by  the  excellency  of  Jacob,  Surely  I  will 
never  forget  any  of  their  works.  Shall  not  the 
land  tremble  for  this,  and  every  one  mourn  that 
dwelleth  therein  ?  and  it  shall  rise  up  wholly  as  a 
flood;  and  it  shall  be  cast  out  and  drowned,  as  by 
the  flood  of  Egypt."  You  see  that  these  ancient 
financiers  had  already  learned  the  art  of  cornering 
the  people's  food  supply.  The  privileged  orders 
were  indignant  at  this  kind  of  language,  but  it  all 
came  true.  Within  thirty  years  from  the  time 
when  this  prophecy  was  uttered  this  northern  king- 
dom of  Israel  fell  before  the  sword  of  Assyria  and 
has  never  been  restored. 

You  can  see  now  the  real  meaning  of  my  text.  It 
was  a  declaration  of  belief  in  the  moral  government 
of  the  universe  and  the  workins:  of  God  in  human 


THE    SOCIAL   JUDGMENT  95 

history.  How  often  the  same  kind  of  thing  has 
happened  !  Over  and  over  again  in  the  course  of 
human  experience  reHgion  and  morality  have  been 
divorced  from  each  other,  or  rather  institutional 
religion  has  been  thrown  on  the  side  of  a  conven- 
tional morality  which  ignored  or  contradicted  the 
deeper  sanctions  of  right  and  wrong.  It  is  only 
too  fatally  easy  for  an  institution  to  become  an  end 
in  itself  and  to  adopt  a  false  standard  of  sanctity. 
Men  are  always  prepared  to  call  that  good  which  is 
to  their  material  advantage  and  makes  less  demand 
upon  them  than  some  other  course  of  action  would 
involve.  How  seldom  we  ever  pause  to  ask  our- 
selves why  a  thing  should  be  called  sacred  or  pro- 
fane, good  or  evil,  right  or  wrong  !  It  is  note- 
worthy that  what  the  privileged  religious  orders 
were  doing  in  the  time  of  Amos  they  have  always 
been  doing  more  or  less.  Once  get  a  thing  called 
venerable,  and  recognised  as  such,  and  before  long 
you  have  all  the  forces  of  mammon  sheltering  be- 
hind it.  Not  that  its  advocates  and  representatives 
are  conscious  hypocrites,  but  when  the  stability  of 
the  institution  becomes  identical  with  their  own 
self-interest  it  is  but  natural  that  they  should  defend 
the  latter  by  safeguarding  the  former.  Privilege 
has  always  been  doing  this,  and  ever  and  anon  the 
Spirit  of  God  has  had  to  destroy  the  sham  to 
recover  the  reality.  Thus  in  the  thirteenth  century 
of  the  Christian  era  the  long  struggle  of  the  Empire 
and  the  Papacy  ended  in  the  triumph  of  the  latter. 
The  Pope  sat  on  the  throne  of  St.  Peter  wearing 
his  triple  diadem  and  holding  aloft  the  sceptre  of 
universal  dominion,  saying;   "  I  am  Csesar;  I  am 


96  THE    SOCIAL   JUDGMENT 

emperor."  This  was  done  in  the  name  of  Christ 
and  with  the  very  loftiest  pretensions  to  sanctity, 
and  yet  it  was  the  very  opposite  of  the  Spirit  of 
Christ.  The  arrogance  and  cupidity  of  the  priestly 
order  were  conjoined  to  a  corruption  of  manners 
which  has  never  been  excelled;  and  yet — such  is 
the  power  of  names — every  simple  soul  in  Christen- 
dom believed  that,  although  individual  Popes 
might  be  wicked,  the  system  itself  was  somehow 
sacred  and  the  expression  of  the  will  of  God.  It 
was  only  here  and  there  that  some  clear-sighted 
man  dared  to  question  this  assumption,  but  when- 
ever he  did  so  it  was  at  the  peril  of  his  life.  No 
more  appalling  chapter  of  human  Suffering  has  ever 
been  written  than  that  of  the  tortures  inflicted  upon 
the  Alpine  peasants  who  tried  to  read  a  higher 
meaning  into  the  word  "good"  than  that  which 
was  implied  in  the  practice  of  the  Catholic  Church 
as  represented  by  her  official  heads.  Note  how  rare 
it  is  that  a  reformer  ever  comes  forth  from  the  ranks 
of  privilege  in  Church  or  State.  Your  Amos  may 
come  from  the  plough ;  it  is  but  seldom  that  he 
comes  from  a  conventional  school  of  the  prophets. 
There  is  nothing  which  tends  to  blunt  the  moral 
perceptions  so  much  as  to  have  been  trained  to 
regard  a  set  of  ideas  as  good  because  they  are 
called  good,  and  to  believe  that  an  institution  is 
sacred  because  it  has  high-sounding  and  long- 
standing claims  to  be  considered  such.  If,  in 
addition,  your  hopes  of  comfort  and  advancement 
are  bound  up  with  the  accepted  standard,  you  are 
not  likely  to  look  with  favour  upon  what  some 
rustic  preacher  has  to  say  about  the  unreality  of  it 


THE    SOCIAL   JUDGMENT  97 

all.  It  sounds  so  presumptuous  on  the  part  of  the 
herdsman  to  question  the  divineness  of  the  estab- 
lished order.  And  yet  whenever  Amos  speaks,  it 
were  well  for  the  world  to  listen  to  him  rather  than 
to  Amaziah  or  he  may  be  found  to  be  the  herald 
of  doom.  This  sentence  which  forms  my  text  was 
not  a  threat  but  a  warning.  Had  Israel  prepared 
for  tFat  new  advent  of  God  of  which  the  coming  of 
Amos  was  but  the  token  she  might  have  been  a 
living  nation  still.  Had  the  Papacy  listened  to 
John  Huss,  John  Wycliffe,  and  such  as  they,  we 
might  not  have  been  gazing  upon  a  divided 
Christendom  to-day. 

But  how  is  it  with  us  at  the  present  moment?  I 
should  be  sorry  to  think  that  a  precise  parallel  could 
justly  be  drawn  between  the  Western  civilisation  of 
to-day  and  that  of  northern  Israel  nearly  three 
millenniums  ago  or  that  of  Catholic  Europe  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  But  when  we  look  closely  at 
things  as  they  are  the  same  tendencies  are  observ- 
able in  a  large  degree.  To  begin  with,  we  have 
the  same  alliance  between  institutional  religion  and 
a  false  standard  of  morality.  We  see  privilege 
claiming  the  support  of  religion  and  religion 
honouring  the  claim.  Worst  of  all,  we  find  the 
representatives  of  institutional  religion  apparently 
unaware  of  the  deepest  needs  of  the  time  and  the 
urgent  call  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ  to  meet  and 
satisfy  them.  Observe  how  hotly  the  average  man 
will  resent  any  appeal  which  makes  a  drastic 
demand  upon  his  generosity  and  self-sacrifice.  At 
once  he  will  invoke  religion  as  a  weapon  of  defence, 
and  tell  you  that  the  gospel  in  which  he  has  been 
7 


98  THE    SOCIAL   JUDGMENT 

trained  is  something  altogether  different  from  that 
which  you  are  now  proclaiming.  Perhaps  it  is,  but 
his  reason  for  preferring  it  is  that  it  is  probably 
a  good  deal  easier. 

Let  me  try  by  a  concrete  example  to  show  you 
a  Tittle  more  clearly  what  I  mean.  It  is  quite  likely 
that  in  my  congregation  this  morning  there  is  some 
man  of  means  who  has  risen  from  comparatively 
humble  beginnings  to  wealth  and  success.  I  wish 
to  speak  directly  to  that  man,  as  though  he  and  I 
were  alone  and  face  to  face.  He  may  be  willing 
to  listen  to  me  saying  from  the  pulpit  what  he 
would  not  tolerate  for  a  moment  if  I  were  to  say  it 
to  him  in  private. 

How  did  you  attain  your  present  position  of  pro- 
minence and  respectability  ?  You  have  done  so, 
I  doubt  not,  by  what  the  world  would  account  fair 
and  honourable  means.  You  have  denied  yourself 
indulgence,  and  laboured  early  and  late,  at  a  time 
when  your  fellows  were  taking  life  more  easily. 
You  would  say  that  every  penny  you  possess  you 
have  worked  hard  for,  and  that  success  was  slow 
in  coming.  Your  friends  would  say  you  deserve 
it  all  because  of  your  industry  and  integrity.  You 
have  never  been  known  to  break  your  word;  you 
are  strong  and  reliable  in  the  ordinary  practical 
affairs  of  life;  you  have  been  staunch  and  true  to 
those  who  have  trusted  and  stood  by  you.  In  your 
own  way  you  have  tried  to  do  good.  Early  in  life 
you  made  a  practice  of  going  to  church  and  identi- 
fying yourself  with  religious  activities  as  far  as 
your  circumstances  would  permit.  As  you  have 
got  on  you  have  found  yourself  a  person  of  infiu- 


THE    SOCIAL  JUDGMENT  99 

ence  in  certain  circles.  Perhaps  you  have  been 
what  is  called  a  generous  giver,  with  the  result  that 
you  are  looked  up  to  and  considered  an  authority 
even  in  matters  of  doctrine.  You  have  a  set  of 
religious  opinions  which  you  have  never  cared  to 
examine  too  thoroughly,  but  which  suffice  to  carry 
you  through  life.  You  believe  you  are  what  the 
Church  calls  a  sinner,  but  your  minister  must  be 
careful  to  say  so  only  in  the  pulpit.  You  are  a 
sinner  in  a  Pickwickian  sense,  for,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  you  pride  yourself  on  your  uprightness  and 
sterling  worth.  You  would  feel  it  to  be  altogether 
out  of  place  if  at  some  banquet  given  in  your 
honour  the  chairman  were  to  remark  that  you  were 
a  sinner,  but  that  you  had  a  few  good  qualities  as 
well.  Apparently,  therefore,  you  have  two  stand- 
ards in  reference  to  your  character  which  you 
never  attempt  to  reconcile.  Being  a  sinner  you 
think  you  need  salvation,  and  for  this  you  rely 
upon  the  merits  of  your  Redeemer.  You  are  con- 
vinced that  by  doing  so  you  will  go  to  heaven  when 
you  die.  There  are  a  number  of  other  things  which 
you  believe  about  this,  but  I  need  not  mention 
them  now.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  you  feel  your 
religion  to  be  very  real.  You  pray  to  God  and  you 
think  you  love  Jesus;  you  want  all  men  to  be  con- 
verted to  Him,  and  therefore  you  consider  it  most 
important  that  home  and  foreign  missions  should 
be  promoted  as  a  means  to  this  end.  You  take  an 
interest  in  public  life,  and  perhaps  you  go  so  far  as 
to  render  valuable  service  in  the  encouragement  of 
certain  schemes  of  social  reform.  You  believe  in 
temperance  legislation,   the  better  housing  of  the 


100  THE    SOCIAL   JUDGMENT 

poor,  an  efficient  system  of  national  education,  and 
such  like.  But  you  draw  the  line  rigidly,  both 
religiously  and  socially,  at  what  you  call  dangerous 
innovations.  You  are  most  indignant  with  those 
modern  preachers  who  seem  to  you  to  be  unsound 
on  the  person  of  Christ,  the  Atonement,  and  the 
sinfulness  of  sin.  You  are  even  more  indignant  and 
alarmed  at  what  you  call  the  wild  and  impracticable 
proposals  of  spoliation  and  confiscation  which 
usually  accompany  their  doctrines  and  are  preached 
by  many  people  who  have  no  religion  at  all.  These 
tendencies  seem  to  you  so  serious  that  you  cannot 
find  terms  strong  enough  wherewith  to  denounce 
the  perpetrators  of  the  evil.  You  call  them  free- 
thinkers and  materialists,  false  prophets  who  make 
the  Cross  of  Christ  of  non-effect,  and  so  on.  You 
would  be  glad  to  see  them  silenced  if  it  could  be 
done  without  rousing  too  much  public  attention. 
Probably  you  are  using  all  the  influence  at  your 
command  to  secure  that  the  pulpits  of  this  land 
shall  be  filled  only  with  preachers  who  will  pro- 
claim what  you  call  the  grand  old  gospel. 

Now,  will  you  permit  me  to  come  to  close 
quarters  with  you,  my  friend?  I  think  you  will 
admit  that  Ihave  not  been  unfair  in  my  estimate 
of  your  character.  I  not  only  admit  your  sincerity, 
but  respect  it,  and  I  fully  recognise  and  admire 
your  worth.  But  I  cannot  spare  you.  You  stand 
for  the  most  damnable  force  in  the  civilised  world 
to-day,  materialism  in  alliance  with  religion.  It  is 
infinitely  worse  than  materialism,  unblushing  and 
avowed,  and  far  more  difficult  to  fight.  It  is  you 
who  are  the  materialist,  not  the  atheists  and  free- 


THE    SOCIAL   JUDGMENT  loi 

thinkers  you  denounce.  You  are  calling  evil  good 
and  good  evil.  I  question  all  your  ideals,  and 
arraign  at  the  bar  of  God  the  means  by  which  you 
have  attained  your  success  as  well  as  those  by 
which  you  are  keeping  it.  Your  early  desire  to 
get  on  was  not  a  right  desire.  Your  efforts  to  rise 
into  a  superior  social  class  have  all  been  contempt- 
ible. You  have  been  trying  all  the  while  to  do  the 
best  you  can  for  yourself,  and,  although  you  have 
a  kind  heart  and  are  loved  at  home,  you  are  think- 
ing so  much  of  yourself  to-day  that  you  cannot  see 
with  a  true  moral  perspective.  Your  belief  that 
God  has  prospered  you  is  a  false  belief.  God  never 
commanded  you  to  get  rich;  he  commanded  you 
to  bless  mankind.  Your  heart  ought  to  have  been 
filled  with  different  emotions,  and  your  soul  with 
loftier  ideals  than  those  which  have  governed  your 
career.  I  question  the  very  root  motive  of  all  your 
industry  and  perseverance ;  you  have  been  playing 
for  your  own  hand,  and  therefore,  though  you 
would  never  own  it,  you  have  been  trying  to  serve 
God  and  mammon  at  the  same  time.  I  question 
even  your  integrity.  To  make  a  business  success 
you  have  had  to  steel  your  heart  sometimes.  Your 
prosperity  has  meant  others'  adversity.  You  have 
seen  men  go  under  as  you  rose,  and,  though  you 
did  not  actually  fling  them  down,  you  have  felt  no 
responsibility  for  their  fall.  Your  success  has 
meant  a  long  struggle,  and  there  must  have  been 
times  when  you  saw  that  the  ethics  of  that  struggle 
were  not  those  of  the  Christ  in  whom  you  professed 
to  believe.  Now  comes  the  hardest  part  of  all. 
Your  belief  in  that  Christ  is  a  lie.     You  do  not 


102  THE   SOCIAL   JUDGMENT 

know  what  He  stood  for,  and  you  are  dishonouring 
Him  in  your  ideals  every  day  of  your  life.  Your 
doctrine  of  Atonement  is  a  sham.  If  you  really 
believed  in  it  you  could  never  again  be  content  to 
occupy  your  position  of  privilege  and  material 
power  while  thousands  of  your  fellow-men  were 
lying  in  poverty  and  pain.  No  one  ever  needed  to 
die  in  order  that  God  might  forgive  you  and  let 
you  into  heaven,  and  no  one  ever  did.  But  some 
one  had  to  die — and  some  are  dying  now — that  the 
love  of  God  might  be  revealed  by  man  to  man  and 
draw  us  all  together  in  a  spiritual  brotherhood. 
That  is  the  true  Atonement — the  making  one  of 
man  with  man,  and  all  with  God — the  everything 
which  tends  to  keep  men  apart  is  the  very  opposite. 
You  do  not  believe  in  the  Atonement,  for  you  have 
hardly  begun  to  realise  what  it  is.  Lastly,  your 
thought  about  sin  is  radically  vicious.  There  is 
no  sin,  my  friend,  but  that  of  trying  to  look  after 
yourself  at  the  expense  of  your  brother.  And  have 
you  not  been  doing  that?  Are  you  not  doing  it 
now?  Does  not  your  very  success  in  life  imply 
that  you  are  doing  it?  All  your  almsgiving  and 
psalm-singing  put  together  will  not  compensate  for 
the  general  character  and  direction  of  your  life  in 
its  effect  upon  mankind.  I  observe  how  angry  you 
become  when  preachers  trifle,  as  you  call  it,  with 
the  grave  subject  of  sin.  You  are  the  trifler;  you 
are  the  hypocrite,  though  you  do  not  know  it.  You 
say  you  want  the  simple  gospel;  here  it  is.  There 
is  no  service  of  God  which  is  not  the  service  of 
man.  I  charge  you  in  the  name  of  the  Most  High 
to  cease  from  lip-reverence  to  Jesus  Christ  until 


THE    SOCIAL   JUDGMENT  103 

you  are  prepared  to  follow  Him  in  your  life.  I 
bid  you  ask  yourself  why  you  resent  anything 
uttered  in  the  name  of  Christ  which  means  material 
loss  to  you  or  the  order  to  which  you  belong.  Is 
it  not  because  you  are  selfish  ?  When  you  protest 
against  an  unfamiliar  gospel  is  it  because  it  makes 
too  little  demand  upon  your  moral  nature  or  be- 
cause it  makes  too  much  ? 

In  thus  describing  the  religious  and  ethical  stand- 
ards of  a  very  large  class  in  our  British  community 
to-day  I  am  well  aware  of  the  difficulties  surround- 
ing the  subject.  We  have  for  so  long  been  accus- 
tomed to  take  these  standards  for  granted  that  it 
is  almost  impossible  to  get  people  to  see  that  they 
are  false  and  wrong.  The  word  of  the  Lord  has 
gone  forth  against  them  and  they  shall  perish.  The 
question  is  whether  England  will  perish  along  with 
them,  or  whether  we  can  save  her  for  a  nobler 
and  more  glorious  day.  Listen  to  the  following 
piece  of  rugged  writing  : — 

"  Herod  stalks  abroad  this  very  day,  and  this  very 
hour  in  London — the  blood  of  little  children  upon 
his  hands.  Herod  lives  in  great  houses.  Herod 
is  in  Parliament.  He  is  respected  and  honoured, 
and  his  name  is  in  the  mouths  of  men.  But  he  is 
none  the  less  a  murderer.  He  murders  children 
for  money  !  He  murders  the  children  of  men  who 
are  in  their  prime — of  men — who  he  says  are  too 
old  to  work  for  him  because  they  are  forty.  He 
lies,  and  he  knows  that  he  lies,  when  he  says  that 
they  are  too  old.  Why,  he  is  over  forty  himself. 
He  turns  them  away  so  that  he  can  sweat  more 
blood  out  of  other  men.   As  an  Englishman  I  speak 


104  THE   SOCIAL   JUDGMENT 

against  this  hellish  and  atrocious  crime  of  con- 
demning men  to  die  of  starvation — who  have  got 
to  their  prime — for  the  sake  of  making  a  little  gold. 
My  voice  may  not  be  heard,  but  as  sure  as  there 
is  a  God  in  heaven — and  mark  me  there  is  a  God 
in  heaven — England  will  suffer  for  allowing  this 
cowardly  and  mean  thing  to  be  done.  England 
will  fall  through  it.  England  must  check  these 
rapacious  wolves  and  blood-suckers  of  employers 
or  England  will  be  smashed  and  broken.  These 
employers  are  traitors  to  our  country.  They  are 
selling  it  as  Judas  sold  Christ,  for  money." 

This  was  written  by  a  modern  Amos,  a  man  who 
came  from  the  ranks  of  the  toilers  and  sufferers  of 
this  wealthy  country,  and  from  a  home  where  often 
there  was  not  enough  to  eat.  I  bid  you  note  that 
what  he  is  saying  is  precisely  what  the  old  Israel- 
itish  prophet  is  saying  in  my  text,  and  for  the 
same  reason.  It  is  God  who  speaks  in  words  like 
these,  and  you  must  listen.  In  the  colossal  struggle 
which  is  now  upon  us  for  the  realisation  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven,  on 
which  side  will  you  be  found?  Are  you  prepared 
to  contend  for  your  own  hand  against  God  ?  Do 
you  think  you  can  cajole  Him  by  using  the  lan- 
guage of  piety?  You  may  deceive  yourself,  but 
you  cannot  deceive  Him.  It  is  not  the  shameless 
profligates,  the  cynical  reprobates,  who  neither  fear 
God  nor  regard  man,  who  are  the  greatest  danger 
to  England  to-day.  It  is  the  people  who  set  up 
an  idol  and  call  it  God,  who  worship  themselves  in 
the  name  of  righteousness;  and  as  sure  as  there  is 
a  God  in  heaven  that  lie  will  have  to  go.     Open 


THE    SOCIAL   JUDGMENT  105 

your  eyes  and  you  shall  see  whither  the  hand  of 
God  is  pointing.  Open  your  hearts  to  the  love 
of  Christ  which  passeth  knowledge,  and  ask  your- 
self what  it  would  have  you  do.  "He  hath  showed 
thee,  O  man,  what  is  good,  and  what  doth  the 
Lord  require  of  thee  but  to  deal  justly,  to  love 
mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God?" 


VIII 

MINISTERING  THE   BREAD   OF   LIFE 

"  But  Jesus  said  u?tto  the7n,  They  need  not  depart; 
give  ye  them  to  eatT — Matt.  xiv.  i6. 

The  story  of  the  miraculous  feeding  of  the  five 
thousand  by  our  Lord  in  the  wilderness  is  remark- 
able in  many  ways.  For  one  thing,  it  happens  to 
be  the  only  miracle  recorded  in  all  the  four  gospels, 
a  fact  that  is  not  without  significance  in  helping 
us  to  understand  the  purpose  with  which  it  was 
originally  written.  The  whole  subject  is  extremely 
interesting,  far  more  so  than  I  shall  be  able  to 
make  clear  in  a  single  sermon.  To  begin  with, 
however,  let  us  put  ourselves  in  possession  of  the 
recorded  facts,  and  then  make  our  deductions. 
According  to  all  the  Evangelists  the  scene  of  the 
miracle  was  a  desert  place;  there  was  a  multitude 
of  five  thousand  men ;  Matthew  says  there  were 
some  women  and  children  also.  The  disciples  of 
Jesus  were  about  to  send  these  people  away,  but 
their  Master  prevented  them  from  doing  so,  say- 
ing :  "They  need  not  depart;  give  ye  them  to 
eat."  They  reply  that  all  the  food  they  possess  is 
but  five  loaves  and  two  fishes.  Jesus  commands 
the  disciples  to  make  the  multitude  sit  down ;  takes 
the  food  in  His  hand;  looks  up  to  heaven;  blesses 

io6 


MINISTERING  THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE     107 

the  supply,  and  distributes  it  to  the  twelve  who 
carry  it  to  the  waiting  host.  But  as  they  share  it 
it  grows,  until  the  hunger  of  all  is  abundantly 
satisfied.  At  the  end  of  the  feast  Jesus  bids  them 
gather  up  the  fragments,  and  when  they  do  so  it 
is  found  that  there  are  no  less  than  twelve  baskets 
full. 

Let  me  put  a  straight  question  to  all  the  level- 
headed people  in  this  congregation.  Do  you  really 
believe  this  story  in  the  literal  sense?  I  have  no 
doubt  there  are  a  few  among  you  who  think  they 
do,  but  these  few  represent  the  very  class  which 
would  most  sturdily  refuse  to  believe  any  such 
thing  if  it  were  told,  say,  of  the  Bishop  of  London 
in  Soho  yesterday.  That  very  quality  of  mind 
w^hich  bids  you  accept  a  venerable  tradition  without 
question  is  the  quality  of  mind  which  would  reject 
it  without  question  if  it  belonged  to  your  own  day 
and  generation.  It  is  your  so-called  practical  man 
who  will  believe  any  mortal  thing,  no  matter  how 
improbable,  so  long  as  it  is  in  the  Bible;  but  would 
never  dream  of  believing  anything  out  of  the  com- 
mon in  every-day  life  unless  it  were  supported  by 
incontrovertible  evidence.  His  credulity  in  the  one 
case  and  scepticism  in  the  other  are  both  due  to  a 
lack  of  imagination.  Permit  me  to  say,  then, 
before  going  any  further,  that  if  you  accept  this 
st6ry  as  literal  four-footed  fact  you  will  land  your- 
self in  an  impossible  position ;  and  not  only  so, 
but  you  will  miss  the  very  point  for  which  it  was 
ever  told  at  all.  The  men  who  wrote  this  story 
were  Orientals.  Neither  they  nor  their  immediate 
circle  of  readers  were  in  the  least  deceived  by  their 


io8    MINISTERING  THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE 

use  of  language.  They  used  this  great  story — for 
it  is  a  great  story — as  a  parable  to  illustrate  the 
spiritual  value  of  Jesus  to  the  world.  They  prac- 
tically say  so — if  you  care  to  follow  the  evidence 
closely. 

There  are  many  reasons  why  we  ought  not  to 
take  such  a  story  literally,  but  I  have  no  time  to 
deal  with  them  this  morning.  I  will  content  my- 
self with  pointing  out  only  two  things  which  are 
sufficient  to  show  that  the  writers  never  meant  us 
to  take  it  literally.  The  first  is  the  fact  that  the 
same  kind  of  miracle  is  recorded  twice  in  Matthew 
and  Mark.  In  the  former  case  five  thousand  people 
were  fed  and  in  the  latter  four.  Five  loaves  sufficed 
in  the  first  instance  and  seven  in  the  second.  In 
Matthew*s  gospel  these  two  miracles,  so  strikingly 
alike,  are  recorded  in  successive  chapters — the  four- 
teenth and  fifteenth  respectively.  It  may  be  that 
they  are  both  early  versions  of  the  same  legend, 
but  that  does  not  dispose  of  the  difficulty  I  am 
going  to  state,  which  is  this  :  The  disciples  ex- 
pressed just  the  same  kind  of  surprise  on  the  second 
occasion  as  on  the  first — "  Whence  should  we  have 
so  much  bread  in  the  wilderness,  as  to  fill  so  great 
a  multitude?"  If  they  had  already  seen  five  thou- 
sand fed  with  five  loaves,  why  should  they  be  in- 
credulous as  to  the  possibility  of  feeding  four  thou- 
sand with  seven  ?  But  a  more  convincing  piece  of 
evidence  is  given  in  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  the 
same  gospel — that  is,  the  chapter  immediately 
following  the  double  record  of  this  stupendous 
miracle.  We  are  told  that  immediately  after  the 
feeding  of  the  four  thousand  Jesus  took  ship  to  the 


MINISTERING  THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE     109 

other  side  of  the  lake,  and  that  the  disciples  forgot 
to  take  bread  with  them.  When  they  arrived  at 
Magdala  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  came  to  Jesus 
demanding  a  sign  from  heaven  as  the  credential 
of  His  authority  to  teach.  Jesus  refused  to  give 
any  sign  other  than  the  self-evidencing  nature  of 
the  teaching  itself,  and  rebuked  them  for  their 
materialism,  affirming  at  the  same  time  that  the 
word  of  truth  needed  no  miracle  to  commend  it. 
When  He  had  said  this  He  turned  to  His  disciples 
and  added  :  "  Take  heed  and  beware  of  the  leaven 
of  the  Pharisees  and  of  the  Sadducees."  The  dis- 
ciples at  once  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  this 
remark  was  made  because  they  had  brought  no 
bread  with  them,  and  He  was  unwilling  that  they 
should  have  to  beg  food  from  His  adversaries. 
Permit  me  to  quote  in  full  the  striking  passage 
which  now  follows  :  — 

"  And  Jesus,  perceiving  it,  said,  O  ye  of  little 
faith,  why  reason  ye  among  yourselves  because  ye 
have  no  bread?  Do  ye  not  yet  perceive,  neither 
remember,  the  five  loaves  of  the  five  thousand,  and 
how  many  baskets  ye  took  up  ?  Neither  the  seven 
loaves  of  the  four  thousand,  and  how  many  baskets 
ye  took  up  ?  How  is  it  that  ye  do  not  perceive  that 
I  spake  not  to  you  concerning  bread  ?  But  beware 
of  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees.  Then 
understood  they  how  that  He  bade  them  not  beware 
of  the  leaven  of  bread,  but  of  the  teaching  of  the 
Pharisees  and  Sadducees." 

Now  observe  the  following  points  in  regard  to 
this  exceedingly  interesting  and  life-like  incident. 
First,  if  Jesus  had  just  been  engaged  in  feeding 


no    MINISTERING  THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE 

thousands  of  people  in  a  miraculous  manner,  what 
need  was  there  to  ask  Him  for  a  sign  from  heaven  ? 
Surely,  no  more  convincing  sign  could  have  been 
given  if  miracles  were  required.  If  I  were  to  under- 
take to  feed  five  thousand  of  the  unemployed, 
gratuitously  and  miraculously,  in  Trafalgar  Square 
to-morrow  morning,  it  would  make  me  the  most 
famous  and  popular  person  in  the  three  kingdoms. 
If  Messrs.  Maskelyne  and  Cook  were  to  challenge 
me  to  perform  some  other  kind  of  miracle  as  a  sign 
that  I  really  possessed  supernatural  power,  the 
challenge  would  seem  ridiculous.  The  papers 
would  say  :  "  He  fed  five  thousand  people  free  of 
charge,  and  with  no  visible  means  of  doing  so. 
What  other  kind  of  miracle  can  you  possibly 
want?"  Secondly,  why  were  the  disciples  con- 
cerned at  having  taken  no  bread  ?  Surely,  if  they 
had  just  seen  thousands  of  people  fed  in  such  a 
stupendous  manner,  they  would  not  have  been 
apprehensive  that  a  mere  dozen  would  have  to  go 
hungry,  or  that  it  would  be  necessary  to  carry  a 
supply  of  food  about  with  them  ?  Thirdly,  and 
most  convincing  of  all,  the  whole  point  of  what 
Jesus  has  to  say  about  the  twelve  and  the  seven 
baskets  full  of  fragments,  is  that  He  was  speaking 
in  a  spiritual,  not  a  material  sense.  His  question 
to  them  :  "  Do  ye  not  yet  understand  ?"  might  with 
equal  propriety  be  put  to  us.  The  feeding  of  the 
multitude  was  not  the  feeding  of  the  body,  but  the 
soul.  The  whole  story  is  symbolical.  It  was  the 
bread  from  heaven,  the  bread  of  life,  which  Jesus 
distributed  to  His  disciples,  and  which  they,  in 
turn,   were  authorised  to  distribute  to  those  who 


MINISTERING  THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE     iii 

were  hungering  and  thirsting  after  righteousness. 
The  striking  story  behind  our  text  is,  therefore,  a 
picture  of  what  has  actually  been  taking  place  in 
the  history  of  the  Christian  gospel.  Jesus  came 
into  the  world  endowed  with  divine  authority  and 
power;  took  up  the  meagre  spiritual  truth  which 
He  found  already  present  in  the  religious  experi- 
ence of  those  who  were  humble  and  sincere;  in- 
creased and  multiplied  it,  and  passed  it  on  through 
appointed  messengers  to  all  who  were  willing  and 
ready  to  receive  it.  The  indirect  effects  of  that 
spiritual  feeding  have  been  no  less  striking  than 
the  direct.  The  twelve  baskets  of  fragments  repre- 
sent the  overflow  into  other  channels,  so  to  speak, 
of  the  glad  tidings  of  great  joy  which  were  first 
preached  by  twelve  simple  men  in  the  highways  of 
Galilee  and  Jerusalem  nineteen  hundred  years  ago. 
It  is  not  only  within  the  Church  of  Christ  that  the 
power  of  that  message  has  been  felt,  but  in  a  thou- 
sand indirect  ways  in  the  amelioration  of  the  lot  of 
humankind.  Apart  from  churches  altogether,  out- 
side the  ordinary  usages  of  religion,  the  message 
of  Jesus  has  been  at  work,  and  its  fragments  are 
being  gathered  up  in  everything  great  and  good 
which  is  being  done  for  society  at  large  as  the  result 
of  His  life  on  earth.  I  am  tempted  to  dwell  for  a 
while  on  the  mystic  numbers  twelve  and  seven, 
which  used  to  mean  so  much  to  the  Jews,  but  I  have 
not  time  to  do  so.  All  I  wish  to  point  out  now  is 
that  this  story  of  the  feedifig  of  the  multitude  from 
small  resources  was  originally  intended  as  a  most 
felicitous  and  beautiful  figure  wherewith  to  describe 
the  spiritual  work  of  Jesus  in  the  world. 


112     MINISTERING  THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE 

From  this  examination  of  the  subject-matter  of 
our  text  I  hope  you  will  now  agree  with  me  that  the 
only  miracle  alluded  to  in  all  the  accounts  of  the 
feeding  of  the  five  thousand,  as  well  as  in  the  words 
of  our  text,  w^as  the  giving  of  the  bread  of  life  in 
the  heart  of  the  seeker  after  truth.  Christ  is  still 
feeding  the  five  thousand — and  more  than  the  five 
thousand,  a  multitude  whom  no  man  can  number — 
with  this  "  bread  which  cometh  down  from  heaven 
and  giveth  life  unto  the  world."  There  is  nothing 
we  need  so  much,  and  yet  we  are  often  tempted  to 
seek  sorry  substitutes  for  it.  Like  the  Pharisees, 
we  seek  after  a  sign,  or  we  try  to  satisfy  ourselves 
wath  the  leaven  of  unreality  and  pretence,  but  in 
the  end  we  shall  have  to  know  that  apart  from  the 
bread  of  life  there  is  nothing  upon  which  to  feed 
our  poor  starved  souls.  Moreover,  it  is  a  posses- 
sion which  increases  by  sharing ;  it  belongs  to  the 
pure  in  heart,  the  brave,  and  faithful,  and  true,  in 
the  things  of  God.  The  humblest  know  it  best,  if 
so  be  that  their  humility  implies  a  confident  reliance 
upon  the  good-will  of  the  eternal  Father.  For 
heights  or  depths,  for  weal  or  woe,  for  joy  or  pain, 
for  the  hour  of  rest  or  the  season  of  toil,  there  is 
no  lasting  sustenance  other  than  that  spiritual  food 
which  in  the  hands  of  Jesus  became  the  greatest 
and  most  satisfying  force  that  the  world  has  ever 
known. 

You  all  know  something  of  what  it  is,  although 
perhaps  you  may  think  you  do  not.  It  is  not  a 
doctrine,  nor  a  form  of  words,  nor  a  sacramental 
system,  nor  anything  other  than  what  any  true 
man  may  prove  and  experience  for  himself.     Do 


MINISTERING  THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE     113 

not  tell  me  you  do  not  know  it.  You  do;  we  all 
do;  everybody  does,  good  and  bad  alike.  Pick 
up  a  religious  newspaper,  and  you  will  find  that  on 
every  page  this  something  is  referred  to  and  called 
God.  Pick  up  a  so-called  secular  journal,  and  you 
will  find  it  no  less  plainly  referred  to,  but  it  may 
have  any  one  of  a  hundred  names.  Go  to  the 
theatre  and  you  will  find  it  on  the  stage.  Visit  the 
Legislature,  and  you  will  hear  the  orators  on  both 
sides  of  the  House  appealing  to  it.  Mingle  with 
a  crowd,  or  enter  any  public  meeting,  and  you  will 
soon  become  conscious  that,  in  the  thoughts  and 
sentiments  which  are  finding  expression,  there  is 
always  a  unity  of  objective;  all  the  effort  is  directed 
towards  something  which  has  not  yet  been  reached 
and  yet  is  nearer  than  anything  else — that  some- 
thing which  is  as  immediately  the  cause  of  all  the 
fructifying  activity  of  the  modern  world  as  the  law 
of  gravitation  is  the  cause  of  the  flow  of  rivers  and 
the  rise  of  verdure  all  over  the  habitable  globe.  I 
will  tell  you  in  one  sentence  what  it  is;  it  is  that 
in  you  which  is  also  the  soul  of  the  universe. 
That  is  the  bread  of  life.  That  was  what  men  saw 
so  plainly  in  Jesus  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago. 
That  is  the  basal  fact  of  all  experience.  If  men  are 
not  living  true  to  that,  they  will  sooner  or  later 
have  to  find  out  their  blunder;  if  they  are,  they 
need  nothing  more. 

Let  us  go  forth  from  this  place  this  morning 
with  this  peerless  truth  dominating  our  thoughts 
and  affections.  Jesus  was  the  bread  of  life.  Yes, 
and  so  you  ought  to  be.  Let  not  your  reverence 
for  Him  blind  your  vision  of  this  ideal.  The  world 
8 


114    MINISTERING  THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE 

has  need  of  those  who  are  showing  us  God,  not 
so  much  by  what  they  say,  as  by  what  they  are. 
All  the  theological  libraries  that  were  ever  built  are 
not  worth  one  being  of  the  moral  stature  of  Jesus. 
If  I  want  to  know  what  God  is  like  I  do  not  go  to 
some  self-satisfied  doctrine-monger,  I  go  to  the 
man  whose  life  is  consecrated  to  great  ends  and 
whose  selfhood  is  swallowed  up  in  his  passionate 
devotion  to  the  cause  he  has  chosen  to  serve.  If 
I  cannot  see  God  in  that  I  shall  never  see  Him  at 
all.  Somehow,  the  great  heart  of  the  world  vibrates 
and  responds  to  every  such  manifestation  of  the 
truth ;  the  whole  level  of  the  common  life  is  raised 
and  glorified  by  the  impact  of  one  great  soul  upon 
it.  This  is  the  world's  hope.  It  will  never  be 
saved  by  anything  else.  All  the  misery  in  London 
to-day  is  but  the  cry  of  soul  hunger.  "  Give  ye 
them  to  eat."  God  wants  you  to  be,  to  your  little 
corner  of  the  vast  total,  just  what  Jesus  was  to  the 
toilers  who  gathered  round  Him  in  the  days  of 
long  ago.  Jesus  was  poor ;  it  was  but  little  of  this 
world's  goods  that  He  ever  had  to  part  with.  But 
He  gave  Himself,  freely,  ungrudgingly,  untiringly ; 
and  in  that  man-giving  people  saw  and  began  to 
believe  in  the  love  of  God.  There  is  no  other  way 
in  which  the  love  of  God  ever  shows  itself  to  a 
needy  world.  Try  it,  and  see  how  it  will  strengthen 
and  satisfy  your  own  soul.  Do  not  be  content  to 
be  God's  beneficiary;  be  His  messenger.  When 
man  in  his  weakness  and  evil-doing  cries  out  for 
God,  give  him  God;  He  is  yours  to  give.  When 
the  weary  and  heavy-laden  seek  for  divine  strength, 
offer  it  to  them;   they  will  soon  find  out  that  they 


MINISTERING  THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE     115 

have  it  already  from  the  same  source  as  you. 
When  anguish  and  heart-break  cry  out  for  help 
and  healing,  minister  both  in  the  name  of  the  Lord. 
*'  Freely  ye  have  received,  freely  give."  Let  the 
sad  and  lonely  see  God  in  you  if  they  cannot  see 
Him  anywhere  else.  Feed  them  with  the  bread  of 
life. 

I  feel  that  in  dealing  with  a  text  like  this  there 
is  a  great  danger  of  talking  mere  cant.  That  is 
always  the  danger  with  familiar  Scripture  sayings, 
and  the  more  we  spiritualise  them  the  more  likely 
are  we  to  miss  their  practical  significance,  unless 
we  see  that  a  spiritual  principle  makes  an  uncom- 
promising moral  demand.  Now  here  is  just  where 
the  danger  of  the  spiritual  interpretation  of  this 
passage  comes  in.  I  have  show^n  you  that  it  does 
not  refer  directly  to  physical  but  to  spiritual  food, 
and  some  of  you  may  be  very  glad  to  hear  it.  You 
may  be  thinking  that  that  makes  it  rather  easier  to 
practise.  Well,  do  not  make  a  mistake  about  that. 
The  truth  is  that  the  spiritual  instead  of  the  literal 
interpretation  throws  upon  you  an  obligation  which 
cannot  be  avoided.  You  might  say,  and  would  be 
quite  justified  in  saying,  that  it  was  all  very  well 
for  Jesus  to  work  a  miracle  in  feeding  a  hungry 
multitude,  and  that  under  such  circumstances  you 
would  be  quite  willing,  like  His  old-time  disciples, 
to  take  the  bread  from  His  hands  and  pass  it  on. 
But  this  is  not  what  happens.  The  poor  we  have 
always  with  us,  and  they  are  not  fed  by  miracle. 
We  may  give  of  our  substance,  but  w-e  do  not  find 
it  increase  by  the  distribution.  How  delightful, 
then,  to  think  that  we  were  never  meant  to  give  real 


ii6    MINISTERING  THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE 

bread,  but  only  spiritual  testimony,  or  loyalty  to 
the  faith,  or  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  something 
equally  unsubstantial ! 

Humbug  and  nonsense !  This  is  just  how  the 
average  representative  of  the  Church  of  Christ  has 
been  talking  for  ages,  and  a  pretty  mess  he  has 
made  of  things.  If  Jesus  came  amongst  us  to-day 
in  the  flesh,  do  you  think  His  own  church  would 
recognise  and  receive  Him  gladly  ?  No,  it  would 
not.  It  would  regard  Him  as  a  dangerous  revolu- 
tionary engaged  in  upsetting  the  established  order 
both  in  Church  and  State.  He  would  see  now,  as 
He  saw  before,  that  the  majority  of  the  professors 
of  religion  prefer  the  easiest  way  of  serving  God. 
Oh,  don't  be  deceived  into  thinking  that  because 
this  feeding  of  the  multitude  was  no  physical 
miracle  that  you  and  I  are  going  to  be  let  off  more 
easily.  The  other  day  some  one  sent  me  a  poem,^ 
the  first  verse  of  which  ran  thus  :  — 

If  Jesus  came  to  London, 

Came  to  London  to-day, 
He  would  not  go  to  the  West  End, 

He  would  come  down  our  way  ; 
He  would  talk  with  the  children  dancing 

To  the  organ  out  in  the  street, 
And  say  He  was  their  big  Brother, 

And  give  them  something  to  eat. 

Well,  now,  I  don't  think  He  would  do  exactly 
this.  I  don't  think  He  would  suppose  that  charity 
would  meet  the  case,  and,  if  He  did.  He  would  not 
have  very  much  to  give  away  a  The  East  End  of 
London  would  be  too  much  for  Him.     He  would 

^  Jesus  in  Londo7t.     By  E.  Nesbit  (A.  C.  Fifield),  7^.  net. 


MINISTERING  THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE     117 

have  to  work  a  fresh  miracle  every  morning  if  He 
were  to  give  the  poor  enough  to  eat.  And,  more- 
over, if  He  met  the  case  in  that  way  the  result 
would  be  demoralising  at  both  ends  of  the  social 
scale.  It  would  be  so  nice  to  all  of  us  to  see  the 
poor  fed  without  any  trouble  either  on  our  part  or 
theirs.  In  a  small  way  this  is  what  we  have  been 
doing  all  along.  We  have  been  giving  doles  out 
of  our  abundance,  but  we  shriek  with  anger  and 
terror  whenever  we  are  told  that  most  of  what  we 
are  giving  was  not  ours  to  begin  with.  No,  I 
don't  think  Jesus  would  attack  things  that  way.  I 
think  He  would  strike  straight  and  hard  at  the 
causes  which  are  making  poverty  and  degradation 
and  keeping  rich  and  poor  apart  in  our  modern 
world  : — 

Then  He'd  say,  "  What's  the  good  of  churches 

When  these  have  nowhere  to  sleep ; 
And  how  can  I  hear  you  praying 

When  they  are  cursing  so  deep  ? 
I  gave  My  blood  and  My  body 

That  they  might  have  bread  and  wine, 
And  you  have  taken  your  share  and  theirs 

Of  these  good  gifts  of  Mine  ! 

"  I've  got  nothing  new  to  tell  you  ; 

You  know  what  I  always  said. 
But  you've  built  their  bones  into  churches 

And  stolen  their  wine  and  bread. 
You,  with  My  name  on  your  foreheads, 

Liar,  and  traitor,  and  knave. 
You  have  lived  by  the  death  of  your  brothers — 

These  whom  I  died  to  save." 

Yes,  this  is  what  Jesus  would  do.  He  would 
expose  the  hollow  sham  of  giving  people  good 
advice  while  continuing  to  profit  by  their  material 
disabilities.     He  would  scorn  us  for  trying  to  put 


ii8    MINISTERING  THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE 

sticking  plaster  on  a  running  sore.  He  would  bid 
us  probe  to  the  bottom  of  the  things  which  are 
making  want,  sorrow,  despair,  and  broken  hearts. 
He  would  make  us  ashamed  of  ourselves  that  we 
had  never  faced  the  situation  more  thoroughly  and 
honestly  before.  He  would  strike  straight  at  the 
root  of  our  selfishness,  and  say:  ''Give  ye  them 
to  eat !  Give,  give,  give,  of  your  own  blood  and 
soul  for  the  righting  of  the  wrong,  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  evil  system  by  which  the  thousands 
suffer  that  the  few  may  enjoy;  give  yourself y  not 
merely  the  cheese-parings  of  your  material  sub- 
stance." And  then  we  should  begin  to  wonder  if 
we  ever  knew  before  what  the  gospel  was  all  about, 
and  every  one  of  us  would  pray  :  "  God  be  merciful 
to  me,  a  sinner." 

A  few  days  ago,  as  no  doubt  most  of  you  read  in 
the  papers  at  the  time,  an  artist  and  his  wife  were 
found  drowned  in  the  Thames.  They  had  chosen 
that  mode  of  death  because  the  struggle  to  live  was 
too  much  for  them.  Here  were  people  of  refine- 
ment and  culture,  brought  up  in  good  circum- 
stances, able  to  produce  beautiful  things  to  gladden 
the  common  life,  and  yet  they  perished  for  want  of 
bread.  They  left  a  pathetic  letter  behind  them, 
thanking  the  two  or  three  people  who  had  been 
kind  to  them,  but  saying  they  had  found  the  world 
a  hard  and  cruel  place  to  live  in.  As  they  had  lived 
and  loved  and  suffered  together,  they  thought  they 
would  die  together.  I  suppose  there  are  some  people 
who  would  say  that  these  two  poor  things  have  gone 
to  hell.  Well,  if  so,  it  could  not  be  much  worse 
than   the   hell   they   have  left.     Who   makes  that 


MINISTERING  THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE     119 

hell  ?  You  and  I  make  it — not  willingly,  perhaps, 
but  thoughtlessly  and  selfishly.  We  let  the  forces 
go  on  unchecked  which  make  such  a  hell  inevit- 
able for  thousands  upon  thousands  of  our  fellow- 
creatures.  If  we  had  only  known  in  time,  there  is 
not  a  man  or  woman  in  this  congregation  who 
would  not  have  given  his  or  her  last  crust  to  save 
these  victims  of  our  industrial  anarchy  from  the 
slow  torture  and  pitiful  end  of  which  we  have  been 
hearing  now.  But  for  one  of  whom  you  hear  in 
this  way  there  are  a  thousand  of  whom  you  don't 
and  never  will.  What  are  we  going  to  do  about 
them?  "  Give  ye  them  to  eat."  But  we  have  not 
the  means ;  we  have  barely  enough  for  ourselves  ! 
Just  so;  and  if  you  gave  it  all  away  you  would 
not  have  solved  the  problem.  But  give  yourself; 
give  the  bread  of  your  own  life.  Give  the  spirit  of 
comradeship.  Get  to  know  what  is  wrong,  and  do 
not  spare  yourself  in  the  consecrated  endeavour  to 
put  it  right.  You  can  easily  find  out  what  to  do  if 
you  only  want  to  find  out.  Why,  in  this  very 
congregation  at  this  moment  there  are  sad  hearts 
and  weary  brains  caused  by  this  same  struggle  for 
the  meat  which  perisheth.  Yes,  even  here.  Here 
are  men  and  women  bearing  up  bravely  and  sadly 
against  the  sordid  pressure  of  conditions  which  are 
crushing  them  down  and  driving  them  into  the  ranks 
of  hopeless  failures.  I  know  from  experience  that 
when  this  sermon  is  over,  and  I  go  into  my  vestry, 
I  shall  be  met  with  first  one  appeal  and  then  another 
for  assistance  which  I  am  unable  to  render.  I  can- 
not work  a  miracle.  I  sometimes  feel  as  though 
everybody  in  England  tries  me  first  when  help  is 


I20    MINISTERING  THE  BREAD  OF  LIFE 

wanted  for  this  cause  or  that,  or  this  or  yonder 
suffering  individual,  and  every  one  that  comes 
seems  to  think  that  he  or  she  is  the  only  one  who 
has  ever  thought  of  such  a  thing.  But  I  know 
quite  well  what  is  wanted.  What  is  wanted  is  that 
we  should  rise  up  together  and  say  :  It  is  not  the 
will  of  God  that  men  should  go  under  in  misery 
and  despair.  It  is  not  the  will  of  God  that  they 
should  continue  to  struggle  against  one  another, 
and  hamper  and  hinder  one  another.  It  is  the  will 
of  God  that  we  should  get  together  and  help  and 
encourage  one  another  in  the  march  of  life.  Jesus 
came  to  show  us  how  to  do  it,  and  the  spirit  in 
which  He  lived  His  life  and  died  His  death  is  the 
one  hope  of  the  world.  This  is  the  reason  why 
men  feel  Him  to  be  their  brother  and  their  Lord. 
They  do  not  want  miracles;  they  want  the  bread 
of  life  that  they  may  eat  and  be  filled.  Oh,  children 
of  the  living  God,  rise  up  in  your  sovereign 
strength,  and  realise  the  ideal  of  Jesus,  the  union 
of  all  who  love  in  the  service  of  all  who  suffer. 
Strive  earnestly  to  fulfil  the  prayer  of  Jesus,  **  That 
they  all  may  be  one." 


IX 

THE   HATE  THAT   IS   LOVE 

"  If  any  jnan  cofne  to  Me,  and  hate  not  his  father^  and 
mother^  and  wife,  a7td  children,  and  brethren,  and 
sisters^  yea,  and  his  own  life  also,  he  cannot  be  My 
disciple."— lAJYiF.  xiv,  26. 

This  is  one  of  the  hard  sayings  of  Jesus,  and 
if  we  were  now  hearing  it  for  the  first  time,  apart 
from  the  authority  of  His  great  name,  we  should 
probably  consider  it  the  utterance  of  a  madman. 
If  there  be  one  sentence  in  the  whole  Bible  which 
forbids  a  literal  interpretation  it  is  this.  On  the 
face  of  it,  it  seems  to  inculcate  a  fanatical  indiffer- 
ence to  the  claims  of  ordinary  filial  duty  and  affec- 
tion, not  to  speak  of  the  obligations  implied  in 
being  members  of  a  civilised  society.  It  is  because 
we  are  used  to  it  that  we  pass  lightly  over  its  diffi- 
culties, and  content  ourselves  with  explanations 
which  are  not  explanations  at  all.  The  truth  is, 
that  we  have  here  one  of  the  profoundest  and 
most  uncompromising  assertions  ever  made  as  to 
the  necessity  for  self-renunciation  if  we  would  know 
the  inner  meaning  of  life.  It  is  one  of  those  mag- 
nificent paradoxes  in  which  the  greatest  teacher 
the  world  has  ever  known  lays  bare  the  secret  of 
His  own  power  over  evil.     Let  us  try,  following 

121 


122        THE    HATE   THAT   IS   LOVE 

the  guidance  of  His  teaching  as  a  whole,  to  under- 
stand what  He  means  by  a  test  so  searching  and 
so  apparently  cruel  as  this. 

The  first  thing  to  notice  is  that  Jesus'  own 
behaviour  negatives  any  possibility  of  putting  a 
harsh  interpretation  upon  these  words.  He  cer- 
tainly did  not  hate  any  one,  least  of  all  His  own 
mother.  The  Being  who  took  little  children  up  in 
His  arms  and  blessed  them  was  hardly  likely  to 
curse  them  in  the  next  breath;  and  the  fact  that 
He  was  able  to  see  the  beauty  of  child  life  at  all 
is  proof  positive  that  he  was  no  inhuman  enthusiast 
carried  away  by  religious  zeal  to  such  an  extent  as 
to  repudiate  all  earthly  ties.  The  episodes  in  His 
ministry  when  He  showed  Himself  tender  and 
gentle  to  children  and  women,  in  an  age  when 
both  were  treated  with  scant  respect,  seem  to  have 
greatly  impressed  His  followers.  It  was  not  on 
one  occasion  only  that  He  showed  this  side  of  His 
character,  but  on  many.  His  illustrations  from 
child  life  were  frequent.  The  incident  about  set- 
ting a  little  child  in  the  midst  of  quarrelling  men 
and  telling  them  that  they  must  become  like  that 
child  in  order  to  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
was  no  isolated  one;  when  we  compare  the  gospel 
narratives  the  conclusion  appears  irresistible  that 
He  often  acted  in  this  way,  so  often  indeed  that 
His  disciples  ceased  to  be  astonished  thereat. 
"  Take  heed  that  ye  despise  not  one  of  these  little 
ones,  for  I  say  unto  you  that  in  heaven  their  angels 
do  always  behold  the  face  of  My  Father."  ''  If 
ye  then,  being  evil,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts 
unto  your  children,    how   much   more  shall   your 


THE    HATE    THAT    IS   LOVE         123 

Father  which  is  in  heaven  give  the  Holy  Spirit 
unto  them  that  ask  Him?"  Not  much  suggestion 
here  about  hating  your  own  children — the  very 
opposite;  Jesus  here  declares  the  sacredness  of 
child  life,  and  illustrates  the  Fatherhood  of  God 
from  what  His  hearers  already  knew  of  the  father- 
hood of  man. 

On  the  question  of  the  treatment  of  women  Jesus 
set  the  standard  for  all  time.  How  marvellous  was 
His  insight  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that,  at 
a  time,  and  among  a  people,  when  female  incon- 
tinence was  punished  with  the  most  merciless 
severity,  the  only  recorded  words  of  Jesus  in 
reference  to  that  particular  offence  are  words  of 
compassion.  This  is  really  striking,  for  although 
nineteen  centuries  have  passed  aw^ay.  His  attitude 
on  this  question  is  still  far  from  being  that  of  the 
average  man ;  if  Jesus  were  beginning  His  ministry 
now  I  am  afraid  we  should  call  Him  a  trifler  with 
morals;  and,  even  if  we  wished  Him  well,  we 
should  warn  Him  to  be  more  careful  in  His  refer- 
ences to  this  social  evil — the  truth  being,  of  course, 
that  on  questions  of  sex  morality  we  are  still  in  the 
dark  ages  when  man  regarded  woman  as  his 
chattel.  Jesus  knew,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  say, 
that  there  were  w^orse  offences  against  the  well- 
being  of  humanity  than  that  of  the  poor  woman 
who  became  the  victim  of  man's  cruelty  and  lust. 
The  story  told  in  the  first  eleven  verses  of  the 
eighth  of  John  about  the  woman  taken  in  adultery 
is  quite  likely  to  be  true,  although  it  is  a  fragment 
of  tradition  which  does  not  belong  to  the  gospel 
wherein  it  is  found.     If  so,  think  of  all  that  was 


124        THE    HATE   THAT   IS   LOVE 

implied  in  the  quietly  spoken  but  scorching  words, 
"  Let  him  that  is  without  sin  among  you  cast  the 
first  stone  at  her" — that  particular  sin,  mind  you. 
If  Jesus  w^ere  here  to-day  in  the  flesh  and  saw  a 
poor,  disgraced,  heartbroken  girl  standing  alone 
in  a  felon's  dock  to  answer  to  the  charge  of  having 
taken  the  life  of  her  illegitimate  child,  while  the 
man  who  had  ruined  her,  and  whose  name  was 
privately  known  to  judge  and  jury,  went  scot  free, 
what  would  He  say  to  us?  There  is  not  much 
doubt  about  the  answer  to  that  question.  There 
was  one  occasion  when  He  exposed  Himself  to 
scorn  and  false  judgment  for  allowing  Himself  to 
be  touched  by  a  woman  of  the  streets,  and  His  only 
word  in  justification  was,  "  She  loved  much.** 
There  is  more  in  that  short  sentence  than  meets 
the  eye.  How  much  did  Jesus  know  of  that  poor 
blighted  life?  Here  was  a  woman  whose  destruc- 
tion, probably,  w^as  caused  by  the  fact  that  she 
loved  "  not  wisely  but  too  wtII."  She  was  outcast 
now,  to  all  but  Jesus.  Did  His  chivalrous  defence 
of  her  sound  like  an  exhortation  to  hate?  No, 
indeed;  even  in  the  case  of  one  who  had  wandered 
very  far  from  the  path  of  purity  and  truth  Jesus 
had  nothing  but  compassion  and  even  a  measure 
of  respect. 

But  when  we  come  to  womanhood  as  represented 
by  His  own  mother  the  case  is  clearer.  This  text 
of  ours  springs  out  of  a  deep  and  poignant  experi- 
ence through  which  Jesus  w^as  passing  at  the 
moment  when  He  uttered  it.  It  has  sometimes 
been  stated  that  Jesus  felt  deeply  the  opposition 
of  His  own  kindred  to  the  work  He  had  under- 


THE    HATE   THAT   IS   LOVE         125 

taken,  and  their  inability  to  perceive  His  fitness 
for  it.  Look  at  the  sarcastic  counsel,  "  If  Thou 
do  these  things  show  Thyself  to  the  world" — 
**  For  neither  did  His  brethren  believe  on  Him." 
The  time  came  when  they  thought  He  was  mad,  a 
disgrace  and  danger  to  the  family,  and  went  out 
to  bring  Him  home  by  force.  It  was  on  this  occa- 
sion that  Jesus  uttered  the  remarkable  saying  which 
is  Mark's  only  equivalent  for  the  one  which  forms 
our  text,  and  which  certainly  sounds  like  a  repudia- 
tion of  His  own  mother.  ''Who  is  My  mother; 
and  who  are  My  brethren?"  and  turning  to  His 
disciples  He  said,  "  Behold  My  mother  and  My 
brethren.  For  whosoever  shall  do  the  will  of  God, 
the  same  is  My  brother,  and  sister,  and  mother." 
Even  this  is  not  hating,  nor  an  exhortation  to  hate, 
but  it  sounds  very  much  like  a  determination  to 
break  all  bonds  of  earthly  relationship.  Think  of 
the  poor  mother  outside  the  door  hearing  such 
words  as  these  !  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt 
that  the  incident  took  place,  for  in  varying  forms 
it  is  recorded  in  all  three  of  the  older  gospels.  This 
must  have  been  a  trying  period  for  Jesus,  a  time 
when  He  felt  that  fidelity  to  His  vocation  involved 
utter  loneliness  and  misunderstanding.  His  family 
were  to  be  pitied,  too,  especially  His  mother. 
Women  are  religiously  more  conservative,  perhaps, 
and  more  amenable  to  authority  than  men.  To 
them  a  doctrine  or  an  institution  is  sacred  because 
venerable.  To  see  Jesus  tearing  away  the  very 
foundations  of  the  system  of  belief  and  practice 
in  which  she  had  been  reared  must  to  her  have 
been  painful  in  the  extreme.     Her  very  love  for 


126    THE  HATE  THAT  IS  LOVE 

Him  would  fill  her  with  alarm  at  what  He  was 
doing.  All  her  life  she  had  been  accustomed  to 
respect  the  synagogue  and  all  it  stood  for,  as  well 
as  the  authority  of  scribe  and  Pharisee.  She  be- 
came anxious  and  frightened  when  Jesus  chal- 
lenged the  whole  position,  and  went  and  preached 
to  publicans  and  sinners.  He  had  always  been  a 
good  son,  but  who  was  He  to  set  Himself  up 
against  His  preceptors?  True,  they  were  not  all 
that  could  be  desired ;  they  were  seldom  very  spirit- 
ual; sometimes  they  were  cunning  and  grasping; 
but  then  they  were  powerful ;  why  attack  them  ? 
After  all,  they  had  been  there  for  centuries  and 
were  of  divine  institution.  This  dear  child  of  hers 
must  not  fling  Himself  into  antagonism  with  them. 
Above  all.  He  must  not  become  disreputable  by 
associating  with  irreligious  people.  The  neigh- 
bours were  beginning  to  talk,  and  to  point  the 
finger  of  scorn  at  the  home  out  of  which  He  had 
come.  She  must  save  Him ;  she  must  remonstrate ; 
she  knew  He  was  good,  but  was  He  wise?  We 
can  imagine  how  the  soul  of  this  simple  Jewish 
mother  was  torn  with  conflicting  emotions  at  this 
time,  and  how  Jesus  missed  her  sympathy  even 
when  she  was  trying  to  give  it.  We  may  be  quite 
sure  that  there  was  many  a  sad  conversation  be- 
tween the  two  before  He  finally  had  to  leave 
Nazareth  and  find  a  refuge  among  strangers.  Tra- 
dition says  Joseph  was  dead,  and  probably  tradition 
is  right.  There  could  be  no  home  for  Jesus  in 
Nazareth  after  that  humiliating  hour  when  His 
old  neighbours  tried  to  take  His  life.  He  found 
more  sympathy  and  help  elsewhere.     Mark,   this 


THE    HATE   THAT   IS   LOVE         127 

does  not  mean,  and  could  not  mean,  that  Mary 
ever  consciously  failed  her  Son ;  but  the  indications 
at  this  part  of  the  ministry  of  Jesus  all  point  to  the 
fact  that  He  felt  Himself  misunderstood  and  iso- 
lated from  His  own  kindred.  He  lived  in  Caper- 
naum because  He  was  driven  from  Nazareth. 
Hence  it  was  that  in  bitterness  of  heart  He  once 
replied  to  the  outburst  of  an  enthusiastic  would- 
be  follower :  *'  The  foxes  have  holes,  and  the  birds 
of  the  air  have  nests,  but  the  Son  of  man  hath  not 
where  to  lay  His  head."  This  is  a  very  real  bit 
of  human  history.  When  we  read  the  gospels 
now-a-days  we  are  apt  to  forget  that  it  was  pos- 
sible, or  that  Jesus  had  ordinary  human  feelings. 
The  time  came  when  this  temporary  estrangement 
passed,  and  it  says  a  good  deal  for  the  true  spiritu- 
ality of  the  humble  family  at  Nazareth  that, 
although  they  were  not  found  among  the  followers 
of  Jesus  when  His  popularity  was  greatest,  they 
belonged  to  the  persecuted  band  of  disciples  upon 
whom  the  Holy  Ghost  came  after  His  death.  His 
brother  James  was  the  head  of  the  church  at  Jeru- 
salem, and  His  mother  belonged  to  that  little  com- 
pany too.  I  am  glad  the  evangelist  did  not  forget 
to  tell  us  that  she  was  not  far  away  when  He  hung 
dying  on  Calvary.  If  tradition  is  to  be  believed 
His  last  thought  in  that  hour  of  anguish  was  for 
His  mother. 

You  can  now  see,  I  hope,  something  of  the 
immediate  circumstances  out  of  which  this  start- 
ling saying  sprang.  Jesus  spoke  of  hating,  but 
He  was  no  hater;  He  simply  used  the  strongest 
term  he  could  find  to  express  the  greatness  of  the 


128    THE  HATE  THAT  IS  LOVE 

sacrifice  that  was  demanded  of  one  who  would 
follow  and  obey  the  truth  of  God  without  flinching 
or  swerving.  Let  me  illustrate  the  matter  from 
what  most  of  you  know  of  a  Jewish  or  Roman 
Catholic  family  to-day.  Let  a  Jew  become  a  Chris- 
tian or  a  Catholic  become  a  Protestant,  and  it  is  as 
though  all  his  roots  have  been  torn  up  and  his  soul 
transplanted  to  a  foreign  soil.  Is  that  an  easy 
thing?  There  are  few  of  us  who  dare  face  it;  it 
tears  away  the  whole  background  of  life,  and  makes 
the  convert  feel  like  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land. 
It  is  not  merely  a  question  of  change  of  opinion ; 
it  goes  far  deeper  than  that;  it  is  a  change  of  the 
whole  spiritual  environment.  It  requires  enor- 
mous strength  of  character  and  depth  of  conviction 
to  take  such  a  step.  If  that  is  so  to-day,  when 
Christianity  is  both  venerable  and  powerful,  what 
must  it  have  been  to  Jesus  when  He  had  none  to 
advise  Him  but  God,  and  was  not  going  to  join  a 
fresh  community  but  to  make  one.  As  Dr. 
Martineau  finely  says,  '*  With  Him  as  with  us  all 
it  was  no  doubt  difficult  so  long  as  He  was  amid 
the  ways  of  common  life  to  believe  in  the  stirring 
of  a  divine  call  within  Him."  I  am  sure  that  must 
have  been  true.  I  picture  the  grand,  lonely  soul 
of  Jesus  facing  the  future  as  He  looked  back  on  the 
associations  He  had  loved  so  dearly,  and  where  He 
had  learned  the  most  He  knew  of  God.  I  can  see 
Him  facing  the  crisis  with  resolute  mien,  and  yet 
asking  Himself  solemnly  and  sadly  whether  it  was 
really  demanded  of  Him  that  He  should  wound 
His  dearest  and  break  with  all  that  bound  Him  to 
the  past.    But  He  did  it;  He  did  it  as  bravely  and 


THE    HATE    THAT    IS   LOVE         129 

decidedly  as  though  His  mother  and  His  brothers 
were  the  very  personification  of  evil  instead  of  the 
nearest  and  dearest  on  earth.  This  was  what  He 
meant  when  He  spoke  about  hating  them  and  even 
hating  His  own  life.  If  they  or  His  own  self- 
interest  stood  in  the  way  of  His  divine  work  they 
were  to  be  sacrificed  as  uncompromisingly  as 
though  they  were  the  very  legions  of  hell.  Do  you 
think  that  cost  Him  nothing?  Why,  this  whole 
section  of  Scripture  springs  out  of  His  own  living 
experience.  He  speaks  of  sitting  down  and  count- 
ing the  cost;  He  knew  what  that  meant.  He  tells 
us  about  laying  a  foundation,  and  not  being  able 
to  finish.  But  He  did  finish;  the  being  who  was 
willing  to  give  up  respect  and  love,  friends  and 
home,  in  order  to  carry  a  spiritual  gospel  to  the 
lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel,  was  capable  of 
meeting  the  last  ordeal  when  it  came.  Jesus  had 
carried  His  cross  for  many  a  long  day  before  ever 
He  reached  Calvary,  and  this  text  of  ours  tells 
of  one  of  the  bitterest  and  heaviest  of  them  all. 

What  was  it  that  led  Jesus  to  this  momentous 
decision  ?  What  was  the  vital  issue  between  Him 
and  the  custodians  of  the  ancient  faith  in  which 
He  Himself  had  been  trained?  We  ought  to  try 
to  gain  a  clear  idea  of  the  actual  situation  in  order 
to  appreciate  to  the  full  the  intensity  of  the  declara- 
tion which  forms  our  text.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say 
therefore  that  it  was  precisely  the  one  with  which 
Christendom  is  confronted  to-day.  It  was  the 
issue  between  formalism  and  reality  in  religion. 
Jesus  saw  that  the  law  had  become  a  bondage, 
although  originally  it  had  been  the  expression  of 
9 


130    THE  HATE  THAT  IS  LOVE 

living  faith;  so  He  deliberately  broke  through  its 
precepts  in  order  to  fulfil  its  spirit.  He  did  what 
Luther  did  fifteen  hundred  years  afterwards.  He 
threw  men  back  upon  the  immediacy  and  inward- 
ness of  communion  with  God.  Where  others 
appealed  to  the  authority  of  the  letter  He  appealed 
to  the  authority  of  conscience.  He  did  not  value 
in  the  least  the  externals  of  worship,  but  only  sim- 
plicity and  purity  of  heart.  It  was  the  age-long 
duel  between  the  outer  and  the  inner,  the  formal 
and  the  real,  the  letter  and  the  spirit.  Jesus 
declared  His  teaching  to  be  self-evident,  and  so  it 
was,  but  they  killed  Him  for  it.  And  yet  somehow 
I  cannot  help  thinking  that  for  Him  the  bitterness 
of  death  was  passed  when  He  took  the  bold  step 
of  breaking  with  the  traditions  of  His  fathers  and 
the  prejudices  of  His  kindred  rather  than  be  false 
to  His  vision.  He  saw  plainly  what  the  world 
needed;  He  knew  that  God  had  called  Him  to  say 
it;  and,  though  it  tore  His  heart  asunder,  He 
allowed  no  personal  and  private  affection  to  stand 
in  the  way  of  the  due  fulfilment  of  His  divine  com- 
mission. Well  might  He  say,  as  He  was  entitled 
to  say,  "  He  that  loveth  father  or  mother  more 
than  Me  is  not  worthy  of  Me,  and  he  that  taketh 
not  his  cross  and  followeth  after  Me  cannot  be  My 
disciple."  He  was  asking  no  more  from  His  fol- 
lowers than  He  had  already  done  Himself. 

How  often  in  Christian  history  the  same  issue 
has  arisen  !  There  is  no  harder  kind  of  self-sacri- 
fice than  that  which  involves  to  an  extent  the  sac- 
rifice of  others  against  their  own  will.  It  is  this 
which  has  broken  many  a  strong  man  down,  and 


THE    HATE    THAT    IS   LOVE         131 

caused  many  a  lover  of  truth  to  turn  back  and  walk 
with  it  no  more.  And  yet,  whenever  such  a  sacri- 
fice has  been  made,  as  Jesus  made  it,  it  has  been 
the  evidence  of  a  higher  love  than  the  most  beau- 
tiful domestic  bliss  can  ever  show.  It  is  a  love 
which  springs  from  a  nearer  vision  of  the  heart  of 
God;  it  has  a  flaming  grandeur  that  obscures  all 
meaner  delights.  You  have  all  read  of  Bunyan 
and  his  poor  blind  child,  and  how  in  his  prison  cell 
his  keenest  torture  was  the  thought  of  her  help- 
lessness deprived  of  her  natural  protector.  "  Poor 
child,"  he  wrote,  '*  how  hard  it  is  like  to  go  with 
thee  in  this  world  !  Thou  must  be  beaten,  must 
beg,  must  suffer  cold,  and  want,  and  nakedness ; 
and  yet  I  cannot  endure  that  even  the  wind  should 
blow  upon  thee."  Yet  he  remained  in  prison  for 
Christ's  sake,  and  nothing  could  induce  him  to 
violate  his  conscience  or  promise  silence  where  he 
knew  he  ought  to  speak.  The  little  one  could  not 
know  all  that  her  privation  was  costing  her  father. 
Happily  Bunyan  had  a  brave  and  noble  wife,  who 
did  understand.  But  the  understanding  is  not 
usually  so  near  home.  "  A  man's  foes  shall  be 
they  of  his  own  household,"  said  Jesus,  and  He 
spoke  out  of  the  bitter  depths  of  His  own  experi- 
ence. You  all  remember  the  scene  in  Robert 
Elsmere,  where  the  clergyman  has  to  face  matters 
out  with  a  wife  who  is  to  him  as  his  own  soul,  but 
who  fails  to  see  the  truth  that  had  summoned  him 
with  imperious  hand.  Here  are  the  pathetic  words 
in  which  he  makes  his  confession: — "You  were 
there  beside  me,  and  you  could  not  help  me.  I 
dared  not  tell  you  about  it;  I  could  only  struggle 


132    THE  HATE  THAT  IS  LOVE 

on  alone,  so  terribly  alone,  sometimes;  and  now  I 
am  beaten,  beaten.  And  I  come  to  ask  you  to  help 
me  in  the  only  thing  that  remains  to  me.  Help 
me  to  be  an  honest  man — to  follow  conscience — to 
say  and  do  the  truth!"  But  the  poor,  stricken 
wife,  as  brave  and  firm  in  her  way  as  he,  could 
only  gasp  out  that  she  did  not  understand.  Pres- 
ently, when  she  did  understand,  or  thought  she 
understood,  she  pleaded  with  him,  and  then  cut 
herself  off  from  him.  She  tortured  him  by  using 
the  argument  of  earthly  love,  ere,  in  her  own  pitiful 
loyalty  to  a  higher  love,  she  went  away  and  left 
him  to  bear  his  burden  alone.  The  value  of  such 
a  story  as  that  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  it 
presents  with  dramatic  intensity  the  ever-recurring 
tragedy  of  faith.  Here  were  two  souls,  each 
glimpsing  the  highest,  and  separating  from  each 
other  in  their  fidelity  to  what  they  severally  saw, 
though  only  to  meet  again  on  the  level  above  all 
shadows. 

This  is  one  of  God's  ways  of  turning  love  into 
glory  and  making  truth  to  be  part  of  ourselves. 
For  no  such  sacrifice  has  ever  been  made  that  in 
the  long  run  has  meant  the  loss  of  anything  worth 
retaining.  He  who  is  capable  of  it  draws  nearer 
to  what  he  has  renounced,  sees  it  in  a  new  and 
more  sacred  light,  and  clasps  it  again  on  the  resur- 
rection morning. 

These  reflections  now  move  me  to  try  to  speak  in 
the  name  of  this  same  Christ  to  the  deepest  and 
best  in  every  man  and  w^oman  before  me  at  this 
moment.  You  all  know  well  those  turning-points 
in  life  when  w^e  have  to  choose  betw^een  a  higher 


THE    HATE    THAT    IS   LOVE         133 

and  a  lower  good,  a  larger  and  a  lesser  love.  These 
choices  are  usually  very  painful,  and  it  is  often 
difficult  to  see  which  way  to  take.  When  the  final 
decision  has  to  be  made  it  is  sometimes  like  tear- 
ing the  flesh  from  one's  bones;  to  do  the  right 
thing  you  have  to  hurt  some  one,  and  this  is  a 
very  much  harder  matter  than  being  hurt  yourself. 
Well,  here  is  your  rule  of  action  :  Jesus  bids  you 
see  in  the  light  of  God  what  you  ought  to  do,  and 
then  do  it  with  the  same  undaunted  front  that  you 
would  wear  if  your  conflict  were  wdth  the  devil 
himself.  Reject  the  lower  good  as  firmly  and  un- 
compromisingly as  though  it  were  positive  evil ; 
choose  the  higher  love  as  strongly  as  though  you 
hated  the  lower.  However  hard  it  may  be  to  obey 
God's  voice  when  a  moral  decision  becomes  a 
tragedy,  go  through  with  it,  and  you  will  find  in 
the  end  that  you  have  chosen  the  best  even  for  him 
or  her  to  whom  you  have  given  the  most  pain. 

This  profound  spiritual  experience  may  be  lived 
out  on  a  very  restricted  scale,  but  may  be  none  the 
less  real  for  that.  Take  the  case  of  a  man  who 
knows  of  a  wrong  committed  by  his  own  child,  the 
declaration  of  which  will  bring  public  disgrace  both 
upon  that  child  and  his  owm  good  name.  What  is 
he  to  do?  There  stands  the  wrong,  a  black  and 
sinister  barrier  between  him  and  truth.  Some  one 
else  is  having  to  bear  the  consequences  of  it,  per- 
haps the  blame  for  it.  There  is  but  one  thing  to 
do  :  he  must  sacrifice  that  child.  He  must  offer 
him  on  the  altar  of  the  eternal  righteousness,  even 
though  in  so  doing  he  is  offering  himself  a  hun- 
dredfold more.    He  cannot  spare,  if  he  really  loves; 


134    THE  HATE  THAT  IS  LOVE 

the  particular  must  be  yielded  to  the  universal,  the 
smaller  to  the  vaster  good — and  all  else  be  left  to 
God.     Or  take  the  fidelity  to  principle  which  occa- 
sionally means  in  the  cruel  industrial  world  of  to- 
day the  flinging  of  wife  and  children  under  the 
Juggernaut  car  of  financial  ruin.     There  are  men 
in  this  congregation  at  this  moment  who  are  so 
placed    in    business    that    they    would   expose    an 
infamy  to-morrow  and  walk  out  of  their  situation 
with   a  clear  conscience,    but   the   thing  wears  a 
different   aspect   when    it  becomes   a   question   of 
hungry  mouths  at  home.     It  is  all  very  well  to  do 
the  heroic  thing,  but  is  it  well  to  compel  the  baby 
to  take  the  consequences  too?     You  have  no  fear 
for  yourself ;  few  men  have ;  but  we  are  all  fettered 
more  or  less  by  the  sweet  relationships  of  home  and 
fireside  which  carry  with  them  such  tremendous 
responsibilities.     So  you  just  put  up  with  the  foul 
practice,  whatever  it  is,  and  go  on  day  after  day 
acting  a  lie.     I  know  nothing  more  terrible  in  the 
modern  world  than  this  moral  antinomy.     There 
you  sit — straight,  clean-living,  high-souled  men — 
knowing  quite  well  that  every  day  of  your  life  you 
are  having  to  jeopardise  your  self-respect  and  are 
tempted  to  do  things  which  in  your  heart  of  hearts 
you  feel  to  be  base  and  iniquitous.     You  know 
better    than    I    know    that    industrial    life    is    shot 
through  and  through  with  fraud  and  pretence ;  that 
much  of  it  is  sheer  dead  robbery;  that  at  the  best 
it  is  cruel  and  unjust,  and  bears  hardly  upon  the 
weak  and   unfortunate.     You   have   to   steel   your 
heart  as  well  as  your  conscience.     You  dismiss  a 
man    because    you    cannot    afford    to    keep    him, 


THE    HATE    THAT    IS    LOVE         135 

regardless  of  the  fact  that  your  self-preservation 
and  that  of  your  family  means  privation  and  suffer- 
ing to  him  and  his.  Or  you  step  into  another 
man's  place  when  opportunity  offers,  knowing  as 
you  do  so  that  the  chances  are  the  man  you  have 
supplanted  will  never  regain  his  footing.  It  is  the 
fortune  of  war,  and  war  it  is.  You  do  not  care  to 
think  too  much  about  it,  for,  if  you  do,  you  are 
weakened  for  effective  action.  So  you  just  go  on 
like  soldiers  on  a  battlefield,  doing  your  best  to 
destroy  your  fellow-man  against  whom  you  feel  no 
animosity;  and  then,  if  you  are  a  victor  in  the  strife, 
pausing  to  bind  up  the  wounds  of  one  here  and 
there  and  carrying  them  to  hospital.  Is  not  the 
situation  intolerable?  You  know  it  is.  And  the 
worst  of  it  is  that  it  tends  to  become  demoralising. 
A  youngster  sets  out  with  high  ideals,  but  soon 
finds  out  that  if  he  is  to  get  on  he  must  drop  them 
or  only  air  them  now  and  then.  He  learns  in  time 
when  they  are  in  place  and  when  they  are  not.  He 
is  told  that  business  is  business,  and  comes  to  take 
it  for  granted  that  that  means  playing  for  your  own 
hand.  Some  people  can  settle  down  to  it  comfort- 
ably and  without  a  qualm,  go  on  fighting  all  the 
week,  and  sing  hymns  about  brotherly  love  on  Sun- 
day. Others  cannot;  and  that  is  just  where  the 
tragedy  of  the  situation  comes  in.  What  can  one 
man  do?  He  may  dare  everything  on  his  own 
account,  but  there  are  some  he  loves  better  than 
himself. 

Now,  my  dear  fellow-citizens,  let  me  put  the 
issue  plainly  before  you.  I  feel  keenly  the  diffi- 
culty, even  the  seeming  cruelty,  of  speaking  from  a 


136    THE  HATE  THAT  IS  LOVE 

sheltered  position  to  those  who  are  under  fire;  but 
I  am  only  a  tongue;  it  is  not  I  that  speak,  it  is 
this  Christ  of  ages  long  gone  by.  Had  He  a  right 
to  speak  or  had  He  not  ?  Has  He  ever  asked  a  man 
to  do  anything  He  did  not  do  Himself?  More- 
over, I  wish  to  make  it  clear  that  I  would  not  dare 
to  tell  any  one  of  you  your  duty  in  detail;  I  can- 
not possibly  take  your  place  and  see  with  your 
eyes — no,  not  if  you  were  to  tell  me  everything  you 
know  and  feel;  I  can  only  declare  a  principle  and 
leave  you  to  work  it  out.  Sometimes  a  minister 
of  a  Nonconformist  church,  or  an  Anglican  clergy- 
man, or  even  a  Roman  priest,  has  written  or  come 
to  me  telling  me  that  he  dare  not  deliver  his  whole 
soul  for  fear  of  deacons,  or  bishop,  or  pope,  as  the 
case  may  be.  It  is  not  for  himself  he  fears,  but 
there  are  those  whose  lives  are  intertwined  with  his 
in  such  a  way  as  to  complicate  his  problem  and 
make  it  infinitely  perplexing.  He  has  to  think 
about  something  else  besides  the  luxury  of  free 
speech.  What  is  to  be  done?  Is  he  to  fling  all 
reserve  to  the  winds  and  speak  out,  regardless  of 
the  pain  and  loss  his  decision  will  inflict  upon 
others  ?  I  invariably  answer  that  I  do  not  know ; 
that  question  can  only  be  fought  out  alone  with 
God,  each  for  himself.  But  every  man  knows  well 
enough  the  difference  between  compromising  with 
the  face  to  the  light  and  with  the  back  to  it.  There 
are  men  in  our  pulpits  to-day  who  have  forfeited 
all  claim  to  respect  because  they  say  in  private 
what  they  dare  not  say  in  public,  and  their  deceit 
deserves  that  name  because  they  seek  only  to 
stand  well  with  their  particular  world.     God  help 


THE    HATE    THAT    IS    LOVE         137 

them!     "Verily  I  say  unto  you  they  have  their 
reward." 

But  how  utterly  different  with  you  men  who  are 
every  day  being  forced  to  see  more  and  more  clearly 
the  irreconcilable  antagonism  between  the  ideal  of 
Jesus  and  the  maxims  of  modern  industrialism  ! 
You  cannot  shut  your  eyes  to  it,  and  no  priest  can 
absolve  you  from  the  duty  of  settling  your  own 
attitude  towards  it.  You  know  just  what  is  wrong; 
you  know  just  what  is  wanted  to  put  it  right.  But 
what  can  you  do  alone  ?  Can  a  mouse  defy  a 
steam  hammer?  Have  you  counted  the  cost  of 
trying  to  live  as  though  Christ  were  not  only  the 
Master  of  your  life  but  the  life  itself  ?  Have  you 
heard  God  speak  to  you  as  He  spoke  to  Him  ? 
Have  you  realised  what  it  will  mean  if  you  dare  to 
do  what  your  conscience  says  you  ought  to  do  ?  It 
means  not  only  that  you  may  be  a  failure,  as  the 
world  counts  success,  but  that  your  failure  will 
cause  suffering  and  loss  to  some  who  are  dearer  to 
you  than  your  own  soul.  Do  you  know  what  it  is 
to  arouse  the  anger  of  those  who  fail  to  see  what 
you  see  or  who  profit  by  that  which  you  condemn  ? 
Most  of  the  Pharisees  were  honest  enough  in  their 
indignation  with  Jesus;  pretty  nearly  every  success- 
ful man  of  business  will  honestly  regard  you  as  a 
pestilential  nuisance  if  you  interfere  with  things  he 
has  taken  for  granted  all  through  his  career.  Do 
you  understand  that  there  is  no  lie  so  difficult  to 
destroy  as  the  lie  which  good  people  have  come  to 
regard  as  truth  ?  Can  you  imagine  what  is  in- 
volved in  arousing  the  sincere  hostility  of  your 
whole  world?     Dare  you  face  suspicion,  ridicule, 


138    THE  HATE  THAT  IS  LOVE 

contempt,  misrepresentation  ?  Above  all,  can  you 
bring  yourself  to  cause  pain  where  your  heart  feels 
nothing  but  respect  and  love?  Can  you  bring 
yourself  to  fight  a  good  man  with  as  much  deter- 
mination and  unsparing  zeal  as  though  he  were  a 
bad  man  ?  Are  you  prepared  to  defy  the  tempta- 
tion of  becoming  powerful  in  order  to  do  good  later 
— that  subtle  ingenuity  which  has  been  the  over- 
throw of  so  many  of  God's  heroes,  and  which  Jesus 
rejected  at  the  very  outset  of  His  brief  earthly 
ministry  ?  Do  you  see  where  to  begin,  and  are 
you  not  afraid  ?  Has  God  spoken  to  you  so  plainly 
that  your  work  lies  clear  before  you  ?  Then  go 
and  do  it,  no  matter  how  much  the  love  you  put 
into  it  looks  like  hate.  Do  not  wait  to  ask  what 
other  people  are  doing  or  why  you  should  have 
your  little  bit  of  duty  thrust  upon  you  :  do  it,  as 
unto  the  Lord. 

This  is  a  far  truer,  nobler  gospel  than  that  which 
bids  us  owe  everything  to  Jesus  without  seeking  to 
offer  ourselves  as  He  did,  for  precisely  the  same 
end.  The  discipleship  of  reverent  gratitude  to 
Jesus  is  a  poor  thing  compared  with  the  disciple- 
ship that  shares  His  Cross.  Most  people  are  pre- 
pared to  be  God's  beneficiaries,  but  only  a  few  are 
willing  to  be  God's  pioneers.  You  know  now 
which  of  these  are  really  of  the  fellowship  of  Jesus. 


THE   MASTER   ON   THE   SHORE 

"  When  the  morning  was  Jioiv  come  Jesus  stood  on  the 
shore  :  but  the  disciples  knew  not  that  it  was  Jesus."— 
John  xxi.  4. 

On  Sunday  morning  last,  in  dealing  with  the 
subject  of  communion  with  the  living  Christ,  as 
illustrated  in  the  experience  of  the  apostle  Paul,  I 
made  a  passing  reference  to  the  episode  presumed 
in  our  text.  It  has  since  occurred  to  me  that  that 
episode  is  itself  worthy  of  careful  examination,  for 
it  contains  much  that  is  both  helpful  and  suggest- 
ive. It  is  indeed  a  remarkable  piece  of  writing 
from  many  points  of  view.  Before  we  proceed  to 
inquire  into  the  meaning  of  the  text  itself  I  wish 
to  be  quite  sure  that  we  all  recognise  the  true 
character  of  the  chapter  in  which  it  appears. 

It  is  my  custom  when  preaching  from  the  fourth 
gospel  to  point  out  to  my  hearers  that  this  is  a  much 
greater  book  than  most  people  realise.  We  inhabit- 
ants of  the  Western  world  are  unaccustomed  to  this 
kind  of  literature,  which  belongs  to  a  different  age 
and  a  different  mode  of  thinking  from  our  own. 
We  like  things  as  simple  and  straightforward 
as  possible,  even  when  the  subject  is  abstruse;  we 
do   not  care  for  veiled  allusions  and   mysterious 

139 


140      THE    MASTER    ON    THE    SHORE 

significations.  The  Anglo-Saxon  mind,  generally 
speaking,  does  not  greatly  appreciate  even  imagin- 
ative Celtic  writings  like  those  of  Fiona  Macleod. 
A  few  may,  but  the  majority  do  not.  We  are  far 
too  busy,  and  far  too  practical,  and — may  I  add  ? — 
far  too  stolid,  to  be  able  to  appreciate  that  kind  of 
thing  in  any  high  degree.  You  business  men  of 
London  must  not  be  offended  if  I  say  that  I  hardly 
think  most  of  you  are,  either  by  training  or  tem- 
perament, likely  to  understand  such  a  book  as  this 
fourth  gospel  without  a  good  deal  of  careful  in- 
struction. And  yet  if  you  once  get  the  key  to  it 
you  will  find  it  more  helpful  and  interesting  than 
any  of  the  other  three. 

It  is  not  history,  and  never  was  intended  to  be 
understood  as  history.  It  contains  historical  ele- 
ments, but  these  are  always  used  as  the  picture  lan- 
guage of  great  ideas;  this  is  the  writer's  method 
all  through,  and  was  quite  in  accordance  with  the 
whole  school  in  which  he  had  been  trained.  It  is 
more  than  probable  that  there  was  at  one  time  a 
large  literature  in  existence  of  the  same  general 
character  as  this  gospel.  Understand,  then,  when 
you  read  this  book,  that  every  saying  it  contains, 
and  every  incident  it  relates,  has  an  inner  spiritual 
meaning.  The  book  is  a  connected  whole,  but 
every  separate  saying  is  profound  and  complete. 
For  instance,  there  are  no  parables  in  this  gospel, 
and  the  miracles  recorded  are  for  the  most  part 
quite  different  from  those  in  the  other  gospels. 
The  very  first  one,  the  turning  of  water  into  wine, 
is  not  alluded  to  elsewhere;  and  as  for  the  raising 
of  Lazarus,  which  we  might  suppose  to  have  been 


THE    MASTER    ON    THE    SHORE      141 

the  most  astounding  of  all,  not  a  word  is  said 
about  it  in  the  older  gospels.  The  truth  is  that  in 
this  gospel  the  miracles  are  parables,  and  every 
one  of  them  is  designed  to  bring  out  some  special 
aspect  of  spiritual  truth. 

This  is  certainly  the  case  with  the  story  which 
contains  our  text.  But  here  let  me  remark  that, 
although  this  twenty-first  chapter  follows  the  method 
of  the  rest  of  the  book,  and  is  written  in  the  same 
style,  it  is  probably  a  later  addition.  If  you  look 
carefully  you  will  see  that  the  gospel  ends  quite 
naturally  with  the  closing  verse  of  the  twentieth 
chapter  in  the  words:  ''And  many  other  signs 
truly  did  Jesus  in  the  presence  of  His  disciples, 
which  are  not  written  in  this  book  :  but  these  are 
written,  that  ye  might  believe  that  Jesus  is  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God."  After  this  very  suitable 
ending,  the  twenty-first  chapter  proceeds  to  tell  of 
3ome  other  doings  of  Jesus,  and  concludes  in  its 
turn :  '*  And  there  are  also  many  other  things 
which  Jesus  did,  the  which,  if  they  should  be  written 
every  one,  I  suppose  that  even  the  world  itself 
could  not  contain  the  books  that  should  be  written." 
The  reason  for  the  addition  of  this  twenty-first 
chapter  is,  I  think,  fairly  clear.  It  did  not  come 
into  existence  until  after  the  Christian  Church  had 
settled  down  into  something  like  unity  of  organisa- 
tion, and  with  a  strongly  marked  apostolic  tra- 
dition. By  this  time  Peter  had  come  to  be  looked 
upon  as  having  been  the  leader  of  the  apostolic 
band,  and  the  custodian  of  an  authority  which  prob- 
ably he  did  not  exercise  in  his  lifetime.  We  now 
begin  to  hear  of  the  power  of  the  keys,  the  binding 


142      THE   MASTER    ON    THE    SHORE 

and  loosing,  and  such-like ;  and  it  was  only  a  matter 
of  time  before  this  tendency  produced  a  full-blown 
hierarchy  with  Peter  as  the  traditional  first  bishop 
of  Rome  and  forerunner  of  all  the  Popes.  This 
little  fragment  of  scripture  is  therefore  of  much 
later  date  than  most  of  the  New  Testament  writ- 
ings. It  follows  the  general  plan  of  the  fourth 
gospel  in  its  careful  use  of  symbolism.  You  observe 
that  Peter  says  to  the  other  disciples,  **  I  go  a- 
fishing."  It  is  Peter  who  says  it,  and  the  rest  who 
follow.  They  are  fishers  of  men,  and  their  Ship  is 
the  Church.  For  some  time  they  meet  with  no 
success  :  it  is  dark,  and  they  toil  in  vain.  Evidently 
this  reference  is  to  a  period  of  persecution  when  the 
flow  of  conversions  was  temporarily  checked.  But 
now  comes  a  beautiful  suggestion.  The  authorised 
version  of  our  text  says  :  ''When  the  morning  was 
now  come."  The  revised  rendering  is  better— 
"  When  the  day  was  now  breaking  Jesus  stood  on 
the  shore;  but  the  disciples  knew  not  that  it  was 
Jesus."  He  tells  them  to  cast  their  net  on  the  right 
side  of  the  ship,  and  they  shall  find.  They  do  so; 
and  immediately  enclose  a  great  multitude  of  fishes, 
"  and  for  all  there  were  so  many,  yet  was  not  the 
net  broken."  The  suggestion  thus  beautifully  made 
is  that  it  is  Jesus  Himself  who  directs  the  operations 
of  His  servants  from  that  shore  which  lies  beyond 
the  troubled  sea  of  life.  They  cannot  see  Him, 
although  they  obey  the  voice  that  speaks  within 
their  own  souls,  but  they  are  able  to  recognise  Him 
in  the  tokens  of  blessings  that  follow  from  obedi- 
ence. Evidently  this  passage  was  written  before 
there  was  any  breach  in  the  formal  unity  of  the 


.  THE    MASTER    ON    THE    SHORE      143 

visible  church.  It  could  not  be  written  now,  unless 
the  writer  were  prepared  to  ignore  formal  unity 
and  look  for  something  higher. 

Now  let  me  be  perfectly  frank  with  you  in  dis- 
cussing the  message  contained  in  this  sentence  and 
its  context.  I  want  to  discard  the  outer  husk  of 
ecclesiasticism,  and  get  to  the  inner  kernel  of 
spiritual  experience.  To  be  honest  I  suppose  we 
must  confess  that  to  most  of  the  Christians,  at  the 
time  when  this  passage  was  written,  the  Church 
had  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  ark  of  salvation 
into  which  souls  must  be  gathered  in  order  to  be 
saved  from  the  destruction  which  was  to  overtake 
the  world.  The  symbolism  does  not  hold  perfectly 
good,  for  of  course  the  fish  are  being  taken  out  of 
their  natural  element  and  put  to  death  in  being 
caught  by  the  fishermen ;  but  this  is  not  the  only 
place  where  the  same  figure  is  employed.  You  will 
find  it  in  Matthew  xiii.  in  the  parable  of  the  drag- 
net. It  appears  again  in  Luke  v.  in  a  story  which 
is  almost  an  exact  parallel  to  the  one  in  this  chapter 
except  that  the  multitude  of  fishes  was  so  great 
that  the  net  broke.  We  must  just  take  the 
figure  as  it  stands.  The  Church  was  supposed  to 
be  God's  appointed  means  of  saving  a  few  out  of 
a  wicked  world.  Jesus  was  directing  the  fishing 
operations  from  heaven,  and  His  divinely  appointed 
ministers  in  the  ship  called  the  Church  rendered 
willing  obedience  to  the  guidance  of  His  Spirit. 
I  do  not  want  to  take  that  point  of  view,  for  it  has 
long  since  ceased  to  be  true  in  any  real  sense.  I 
do  not  wonder  that  a^  a  time  when  human  society 
seemed  to  be  falling  to  pieces  men  should  have 


144      THE    MASTER    ON    THE    SHORE 

despaired  of  the  world  and  thought  of  the  Christian 
Church  as  the  only  living  hope  for  a  remnant  of  the 
human  race.  I  am  not  sure  that  we  ought  to  be 
confident  in  affirming  that  the  Christians  from  the 
first  ever  expected  to  be  able  to  save  the  world  or 
even  the  majority  of  mankind;  I  am  afraid  it  must 
be  admitted  that  they  only  believed  they  would  be 
able  to  save  a  comparative  few.  They  supposed 
that  these  few  would  inherit  the  earth.  Later  on, 
when  it  was  found  that  Christ  did  not  come  as 
speedily  as  had  been  anticipated,  they  began  to 
think  of  these  few  as  inheriting  a  home  in  heaven, 
and  of  the  earth-world  as  having  to  be  utterly 
destroyed.  If  you  had  lived  in  that  day  you  would 
have  taken  the  same  view.  I  see  that  Mr.  Balfour 
in  delivering  the  Henry  Sidgwick  memorial  lecture 
the  other  day  drew  attention  to  this  point.  He 
remarked  that  the  overthrow  of  the  elaborate  civil- 
isation of  Greece  and  Rome  by  the  influx  of 
barbarism  must  have  seemed  to  the  thoughtful 
minds  of  the  time  the  most  melancholy  thing 
that  had  ever  happened.  It  was  a  long  drawn- 
out  agony.  Little  by  little,  but  inevitably,  the  old 
splendour  was  submerged  by  brute  ignorance  and 
savage  vandalism.  It  must  have  been  hard  for 
persons  of  refinement  to  be  other  than  pessimistic 
as  they  watched  the  process  of  obliteration  going 
on.  Nor  did  the  curtain  of  gloom  lift  again  for 
more  than  a  thousand  years.  The  Renaissance 
gave  the  first  sign  of  a  reawakening  of  the  human 
spirit  from  the  darkness  of  superstition,  but  not 
even  the  Renaissance  could  be  properly  described 
as  a  rehabilitation  of  the  intellectual  achievements 


THE    MASTER    ON    THE    SHORE      145 

of  the  ancient  world;  the  Europe  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries  was  the  scene  of  devastat- 
ing religious  wars,  bitter  intolerance,  and  fiendish 
cruelty  done  in  the  name  of  God.  That  was  the 
period  of  the  massacre  of  Saint  Bartholomew  and 
the  fires  of  Smithfield.  We  may  say  with  perfect 
truth  that  it  was  not  until  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  that  a  civilisation  began  to  appear 
which  was  at  all  comparable  to  that  of  ancient 
Greece  and  Rome  in  their  best  days.  As  Alfred 
Russel  Wallace  has  pointed  out  in  his  book,  The 
Wonderful  Century,  man  achieved  greater  progress 
in  his  power  over  Nature  during  that  fifty  years 
than  in  the  two  millenniums  preceding.  Some 
people  deny  that  our  intellectual  and  moral  pro- 
gress has  kept  pace  with  the  material ;  but,  be  that 
as  it  may,  hardly  any  one  would  seriously  contend 
that  the  world-wide  civilisation  of  to-day  is  not 
vastly  more  complex  and  full  of  promise  than 
any  that  has  gone  before.  It  contains  richer  and 
more  varied  elements,  and  exhibits  potentialities 
undreamed  of  in  the  world  of  Plato  and  Aristotle. 
You  see  then  what  the  world  must  have  looked 
like  to  the  Christians  at  the  time  my  text  was 
written.  They  thought  of  it  as  a  stormy  sea  on 
which  rode  the  ship  of  the  Church  of  Jesus.  And 
this  estimate  was  not  unjust,  for,  amid  the  crash  of 
falling  institutions,  the  only  fabric  which  stood  firm 
was  the  Church.  Into  this,  as  to  an  ark  of  refuge, 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  people  hurried  who 
had  come  to  despair  of  the  world  as  it  then  was. 
And  their  instinct  was  quite  accurate.  The  old 
order  was  changing  and  passing  away,  but  no  one 
10 


146      THE    MASTER    ON    THE    SHORE 

could  see  the  new.  Christianity  alone  held  out  the 
hope  of  a  better  world  to  be.  Men  came  to  trust 
and  reverence  the  Church.  They  admired  its  unity 
and  strength,  its  confidence  in  its  God-given  mis- 
sion, its  authoritative  declaration  of  the  lordship  of 
Christ.  New  heresies  sprang  up  every  day,  but 
their  only  result  seemed  to  be  to  render  the 
evangel  of  the  Church  stronger  and  more  confident 
than  ever,  and  her  power  over  the  human  mind 
greater  than  before — "  for  all  there  were  so  many 
yet  was  not  the  net  broken."  The  almost  inevitable 
outcome  of  these  tendencies  was  the  establishment 
of  the  great  mediaeval  Roman  Church,  which  con- 
tinued unbroken  down  to  the  Reformation,  and  is 
still  powerful  in  our  midst  to-day.  We  may  wil- 
lingly concede  that  during  the  ages  of  barbarism 
this  ecclesiastical  discipline  did  good  and  necessary 
work,  the  work  of  the  school-master  and  the  law^- 
giver ;  the  mistake  that  so  many  people  have  made, 
both  within  and  without  the  borders  of  Christianity, 
has  been  the  identification  of  ecclesiasticism  with  the 
religion  of  Jesus.  We  see  the  beginnings  of  that 
tendency  in  the  story  which  contains  my  text.  We 
see  how  those  beginnings  arose;  but,  now  that  the 
whole  order  of  things  which  made  them  possible 
has  passed  away,  it  is  time  for  the  world  to  take  a 
healthier  and  saner  view.  The  great  problem  before 
the  civilisation  of  the  immediate  future  is  the  atti- 
tude it  must  adopt  towards  the  vital  truths  of 
religion.  Are  we  to  have  done  with  Jesus,  now 
that  the  curtain  is  rising  upon  a  fairer  world  than 
that  of  old  Rome,  or  will  He  still  lead  the  van  of 
human  progress?    There  can  be  no  juggling  with 


THE    MASTER    ON    THE    SHORE      147 

this  question,  and  no  avoiding  it.  We  have  come 
to  the  parting  of  the  Vv^ays.  The  priest  is  impos- 
sible, ecclesiastical  systems  are  crumbling  into  dust 
before  our  eyes ;  the  main  current  of  human  interest 
is  setting  away  from  the  Church  instead  of  towards 
it.     Is  it  setting  away  from  Christ? 

This  question  appears  to  me  so  all-important 
that  I  do  not  see  how  any  thoughtful  man  can 
afford  to  pass  it  by.  The  moral^nd  social  situation 
in  the  world  of  to-day  is  in  some  respects  the  exact 
reverse  of  what  it  was  at  the  time  my  text  came 
into  being.  Secular  civilisation  was  dying  then, 
and  the  only  live  society  was  the  Church;  now  it 
is  the  Church  that  is  dying,  and  society  is  spring- 
ing into  new  life.  By  the  Church  I  mean,  for  the 
moment,  ecclesiastical  Christianity.  What  are  we 
to  say  about  this?  Note  how  serious-minded  men 
inside  the  Church  are  talking  to-day  almost  pre- 
cisely as  serious-minded  men  outside  the  Church 
were  talking  seventeen  or  eighteen  hundred  years 
ago.  Scholars  and  thinkers  were  pessimistic  then 
because  old  philosophies  and  old  faiths  were  dis- 
appearing, and  the  only  religion  with  any  force 
in  it  was  the  rude  uncultured  Christianity  which 
was  sweeping  the  poor  and  ignorant  into  its  fold. 
You  have  only  to  read  the  literature  of  the  time 
to  see  that  I  am  perfectly  faithful  to  the  facts.  See 
how  these  very  facts  are  repeating  themselves  now. 
Now  it  is  the  Christians  who  are  talking  that  way. 
Men  of  light  and  leading  are  deploring  the  decay 
of  faith,  and  the  rise  of  what  they  call  materialism. 
They  cannot  ignore  the  fact  that  the  moral  and 
social  aspirations  of  the  people  in  all  the  countries 


148      THE    MASTER    ON    THE    SHORE 

of  the  civilised  world  have  little  or  nothing  to  do 
with  organised  Christianity.  They  fear  for  the 
future ;  they  dread  the  advent  of  a  democracy  with- 
out soul ;  they  watch  the  inevitable  decline  of 
Church  authority  with  the  gravest  concern. 

But  are  the  tendencies  precisely  what  they  appear 
to  be?  I  am  quite  sure  they  are  not.  On  the 
contrary,  I  hold  that  the  decay  of  organised  religion 
means  the  release  of  the  true  spirit  of  Christianity 
from  its  swaddling  clothes.  I  do  not  believe  that 
there  ever  has  been  a  more  hopeful  time  for  true 
spiritual  religion  in  all  the  history  of  mankind  than 
the  time  in  which  we  are  living  now.  Jesus  sowed 
a  seed  nineteen  hundred  years  ago  which  has  taken 
long  to  germinate  in  darkness  and  pain ;  now  we 
are  beginning  to  see  the  ripening  unto  harvest.  If 
the  Church  is  to  survive  she  must  learn  to  cast  the 
net  on  the  right  side  of  the  ship.  Unfortunately 
many  of  those  who  exercise  power  and  authority 
both  in  Catholic  and  Protestant  Christendom  have 
hitherto  failed  to  see  which  is  the  right  side  of  the 
ship.  They  toil  hard  in  the  darkness,  and  mourn 
the  coming  of  the  light  which  means  the  passing  of 
influence  and  opportunity.  They  watch  the  world 
slipping  out  of  their  grasp,  and  pathetically  fail  to 
understand  that  it  is  not  slipping  out  of  the  grasp 
of  God.  And,  strangest  of  all,  they  do  not  recog- 
nise that  voice  that  comes  out  of  the  shadows  at  the 
breaking  day,  and  tells  them  where  and  how  to  fish 
for  the  souls  of  men.  They  know  not  that  it  is 
the  voice  of  Jesus,  the  Jesus  who  still  watches  and 
works  from  the  farther  shore.  But  a  still  more 
remarkable  thing  is  the  way  in  which  the  world  is 


THE    MASTER    ON    THE    SHORE      149 

learning  to  obey  that  voice  without  knowing  any 
more  than  the  Church  whose  voice  it  is.  One 
section  of  Christendom  ignorantly  liears  and  dis- 
obeys, not  knowing  their  Lord;  the  other  Section 
has  never  known  Him,  but  it  knows  the  spirit  which 
makes  for  the  deliverance  of  mankind  from  the 
bondage  of  sorrow  and  wrong.  Surely  the  day  will 
come  when  these  shall  recognise,  with  a  knowledge 
which  neither  ecclesiastic  nor  atheist  can  obscure, 
that  He  to  whom  the  lowly  came  in  ages  long  gone 
by  is  speaking  still,  and  that  '*  the  common  people 
hear  Him  gladly." 

It  is  only  a  question  of  timfe.  There  is  'a  move- 
ment of  the  Spirit  going  on  all  over  the  world  to- 
day, the  true  significance  of  which  is  only  dimly 
apparent.  In  the  Church  of  Rome  it  is  being  de- 
nounced as  Modernism.  In  Protestant  countries  it 
is  dreaded  as  Humanism,  Socialism,  and  what  not. 
But  it  is  always  the  same  movement,  and  his  eyes 
are  dull  who  cannot  see  that  it  is  the  Spirit  of  God 
moving  once  more  upon  the  face  of  the  waters. 
Even  the  so-called  materialism  and  irreligion  with 
which  it  is  frequently  associated  are  in  essence 
spiritual;  they  are  the  flame  of  the  new  life,  the 
life  of  moral  earnestness  allied  to  human  sympathy. 
It  is  the  gospel  of  happiness  which  is  being 
preached  with  a  new  assurance  by  strenuous  and 
self-sacrificing  servants  of  the  race.  Papal  ency- 
clicals, and  the  hypocritical  warnings  of  Protestant 
religious  newspapers,  can  no  more  stop  that  move- 
ment than  they  can  keep  back  the  tides  by  Act  of 
Parliament.  The  morning  is  breaking,  the  shadows 
are  lifting,  and  heaven  is  speaking  with  accents  loud 


150      THE    MASTER    ON    THE    SHORE 

and  clear  to  those  who  have  ears  to  listen  and  a 
heart  to  understand.  Some  of  you  men  who  come 
here  on  Thursday  mornings  tell  me  that  you  are  not 
so  sure  of  the  reality  of  the  unseen  world  as  Chris- 
tians profess  to  be,  and  that  you  are  not  convinced 
that  the  voice  of  Jesus  has  ever  spoken  to  needy 
suffering  men  since  it  was  silenced  on  the  cruel 
cross  of  Calvary.  You  may  tell  me  that  I  have  no 
proof  of  these  things,  even  though,  after  a  fashion, 
you  may  like  to  hear  me  talk  about  them.  Well, 
I  will  go  with  you  so  far  as  to  admit  that  it  really 
does  not  matter  so  much  as  people  think  that  a  man 
should  be  sure  of  the  life  beyond  death,  or  be  able 
to  give  a  name  to  the  voice  of  hope  and  love  within 
his  own  soul.  What  is  often  called  faith  in  these 
matters  is  only  a  mixture  of  credulity  and  irrever- 
ence. The  thing  of  first  importance  is  that  you 
should  be  true  to  the  best  of  which  you  can  be  sure. 
But  suffer  me  to  declare  my  own  conviction  in  these 
matters.  I  can  no  more  doubt  that  life  shall  live 
for  evermore  than  I  can  doubt  that  life  is  lived 
at  all. 

And  though  in  this  lean  age  forlorn 

Too  many  a  voice  may  cry, 
That  man  shall  have  no  after-morn, 

Not  yet  of  these  am  I. 

The  man  survives,  and  whatsoe'er 

He  wrought  of  good  or  brave, 
Will  mould  him  through  the  cycle  year 

That  dawns  behind  the  grave. 

There  are  times  when  I  almost  feel  as  though  I 
can  hear  the  voice  of  the  multitude  that  no  man  can 
number,  around  the  sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire. 


THE    MASTER    ON    THE    SHORE      151 

I  feel  that  the  universe  is  spirit  and  nothing  but 
spirit,  and  that  infinity  and  eternity  are  impHed  in 
the  very  existence  of  every  individual  soul.  That 
being  so,  the  conviction  grips  and  holds  me  that 
no  voice  that  has  ever  spoken  a  word  for  God  and 
humanity  can  have  ceased  to  speak  because  of  the 
change  called  death,  which  is  only  a  change  from 
the  lesser  to  the  larger,  from  the  lower  to  the  higher 
side  of  life.  Moreover,  it  seems  to  me  unthinkable 
that  the  Jesus  who  suffered  and  died  to  awaken  men 
to  the  true  meaning  of  life,  and  whose  name  has 
lived  in  human  hearts  ever  since,  should  have 
passed  out  of  human  ken  or  be  helpless  to  influence 
human  destiny.  If  so,  the  world  is  indeed  topsy- 
turvy, and  God  has  been  sporting  with  the  most 
sacred  feelings  of  His  children.  No,  no;  because 
life  is  glorious ;  because  life  at  the  heart  of  things 
is  good;  because  life  is  the  slow  unfoldment  of 
God  in  humanity,  this  Jesus  of  long  ago  is  still 
active  and  potent  in  the  regeneration  of  the  world. 
The  word  which  is  destroying  ecclesiasticism  to- 
day is  His  word;  the  w^ord  which  is  kindling  the 
new  spirit  of  brotherhood  in  the  nations  is  His 
word;  the  word  of  emancipation  to  the  lowly  and 
the  sad  is  His  word.  Here  and  there  some  beloved 
disciple  straining  his  eyes  through  the  gloom  to- 
wards that  dim  shore  w^hich  shall  be  so  bright  by 
and  by  discerns  His  sacred  form,  and  whispers  to 
the  rest,  ''It  is  the  Lord."  But  not  all  the  brave 
fishermen  who  are  casting  the  net  have  the  same 
clearness  of  vision.  They  obey,  but  they  do  not 
see.    They  know  not  that  it  is  Jesus. 

Do  not  mistake  me.    This  is  no  longer  the  Jesus 


152      THE    MASTER    ON    THE    SHORE 

of  Galilee  who  was  so  foully  done  to  death  by  re- 
ligious materialists  nineteen  hundred  years  ago; 
He  is  the  same,  yet  not  the  same.  He  was  limited 
then ;  He  is  unlimited  now.  It  cannot  but  be  that 
that  human  Jesus  has  entered  into  the  full  con- 
sciousness of  God  and  grasped  the  sceptre  of  omni- 
potence. That,  and  nothing  less  than  that,  is  the 
destiny  of  all  humanity  too.  And  yet  it  helps  me 
to  think  of  God  as  though  He  wore  the  very  face  of 
Jesus.  Think  of  all  that  is  most  sacred  in  what  you 
have  known  of  humanity,  and  see  it  upon  the 
throne  of  God. 

Yes,  I  believe  it.  Poor  struggling  humanity  is 
neither  being  neglected  nor  led  wrong.  There  is 
no  room  for  pessimism,  much  less  for  despair.  All 
the  noble  voices  of  the  past  are  speaking  still,  and 
most  of  all  the  voice  of  Him  who  spake  as  never 
man  spake.  It  is  He  who  bids  us  cast,  on  the 
right  side  of  the  ship,  that  true  gospel  message  of 
love  and  joy  which  shall  gather  all  men  into  the 
unbroken  fellowship  of  eternal  truth  at  last. 

Let  us  be  sure  as  to  what  that  message  is.  It  is 
very  simple,  so  simple  that  it  repels  many  who  seek 
"  for  Some  great  thing  to  do  or  secret  thing  to 
know."  It  is  the  commandment  to  banish  all  hate 
by  means  of  loving-kindness.  It  is  the  call  to  men 
to  trust  their  own  divinity  and  work  out  their  own 
salvation,  because  it  i$  God  that  worketh  in  them 
both  to  will  and  to  do.  So  many  people  seem  afraid 
of  trusting  this  because  they  think  it  implies  lean- 
ing upon  the  arm  of  flesh.  It  is  the  very  opposite; 
it  is  the  proclamation  that  we  are  the  children  of 
that   eternal   humanity   which    is    God,   and   must 


THE    MASTER    ON    THE    SHORE      153 

recognise  our  lineage  in  order  to  stand  upon  our  feet 
and  live.  It  is  the  exhortation  to  develop  our  indi- 
viduality by  labouring  to  destroy  the  hideous  mon- 
ster called  Individualism.  It  is  a  message  of  cheer 
to  the  oppressed ;  it  tells  us  to  break  one  another's 
bonds  and  free  all  the  prisoners  of  materialism.  It 
forbids  belief  in  the  power  of  that  which  is  basest 
in  human  nature,  and  calls  forth  faith  in  that  which 
is  noblest.  It  points  the  road  to  true  happiness  by 
showing  men  that  self-seeking  must  inevitably  end 
in  failure  and  disappointment.  It  bids  us  believe 
in  the  dawning  of  a  brighter  day  for  the  poor  and 
weak  who  have  hitherto  been  trampled  underfoot 
by  covetousness  and  pride  of  place.  It  is  the  sum- 
mons to  us  all  to  find  our  joy  in  binding  up  the 
broken-hearted  and  wiping  tears  away. 

Just  imagine  what  would  happen  if  you  really 
believed  this  message,  and  acted  upon  it.  It  would 
be  casting  the  net  upon  the  right  side  of  the  ship, 
the  side  of  the  world's  knowledge  of  its  own  need. 
Think  how  many  people  there  are  in  this  church 
at  this  moment  whose  hearts  are  filled  with  sorrow 
and  corroding  care.  Think  of  those  who  have 
given  up  hope  of  anything  better.  Think  of  the 
thousands,  the  millions,  beyond  these  walls  to 
whom  life  is  devoid  of  any  meaning  whatever,  and 
who  never  dream  of  any  higher  state  of  existence 
in  this  world  or  the  next.  Ought  this  to  go  on  ?  Is 
there  any  need  for  it  to  go  on  ?  The  voice  of  Christ 
is  giving  it  the  lie.  We  cannot  be  too  practical  and 
definite  in  our  evangel.  The  real  Christianity,  in 
this  or  any  other  day,  is  that  which  comes  as  a 
mesvsage  of  comfort  and  hope  to  burdened  hearts 


154      THE    MASTER    ON    THE    SHORE 

along  the  line  of  their  real  difficulties  and  troubles. 
It  says  to  the  small  tradesman,  It  is  a  cruel  thing 
that  you  should  be  crushed  over  the  precipice  of 
ruin ;  come  and  help  us  to  get  men  to  live  together 
in  a  kinder,  nobler  way.  It  says  to  the  rich  man, 
You  see  how  little  riches  can  do  to  make  you  glad ; 
come  and  help  us  to  breathe  into  all  troubled  hearts 
the  peace  you  want  in  yours.  It  says  to  the  be- 
reaved. Look  up ;  your  dead  are  not  gone ;  they  are 
more  alive  than  you  in  the  world  of  eternal  reality. 
It  says  to  all  the  weary,  the  discouraged,  and  the 
broken  in  heart,  We  are  one  in  God;  our  home  is 
beyond  the  smiling  and  the  weeping,  and  we  are 
going  there  together.  We  must  go  together,  for 
none  of  us  is  complete  without  all  the  rest.  Even 
Jesus  would  not  be  perfect  without  the  full  ingather- 
ing of  a  redeemed  humanity  to  the  Father's  heart. 
Undivided  and  unbroken  we  must  ascend  with  Him 
to  our  eternal  home.  That  is  what  His  voice  is 
saying  from  that  farther  shore.  Pray  God  that  we 
who  toil  upon  the  deep  may  ever  cast  the  net  upon 
the  right  side,  as  we  hear  our  Master's  voice  at  the 
breaking  of  the  day. 


XI 

SOWING  AND   REAPING 

"  And  herein  is  that  saying  true^  One  soweth^  and 
another  reapeth.^'' — John  iv.  37. 

This  saying  derives  its  force  from  the  commun- 
istic quality  of  all  good  actions,  but  it  has  a  further 
range  likewise.  It  tells  us  something  of  the  work- 
ing of  the  moral  law  relating  both  to  retribution 
and  redemption.  There  is  no  subject  on  which 
religious  thought  is  more  confused  at  present  than 
this.  The  older  view  of  the  matter  has  hopelessly 
broken  down,  and  we  have  not  yet  adjusted  our- 
selves to  the  new  focus  required  by  the  testimony 
of  moral  experience  in  the  light  of  modern  recogni- 
tion of  the  solidarity  of  the  human  race.  My  object 
this  morning  is  to  try  to  show  if  I  can,  with  this 
text  to  guide  us,  the  relation  between  the  certainty 
of  individual  retribution  for  wrong-doing,  and  the 
place  for  full  forgiveness  and  redemption  by  vicari- 
ous suffering.  It  will  be  seen  at  once,  therefore, 
that  our  theme  is  a  large  and  important  one,  and 
will  require  the  most  careful  statement. 

To  begin  with,  let  us  examine  the  situation  im- 
mediately presumed  in  the  words  of  our  text.  The 
scene  is  that  of  the  evangelising  of  the  Samaritans 
through  the  conversation  of  Jesus  with  the  woman 
at  the  well.     I  have  previously  taken  occasion  to 

155 


156  SOWING    AND    REAPING 

point  out  that  whether  this  story  be  historically  true 
or  not  it  is  used  here,  in  accordance  with  the  method 
of  the  writer  of  this  gospel,  to  illustrate  something 
far  larger.  He  uses  an  incident  as  a  parable.  Jesus 
may  or  may  not  have  talked  with  a  Samaritan 
woman  at  Jacob's  well,  but  the  real  point  of  the 
narrative  has  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  the 
Samaritans  as  such.  I  need  not  remind  you  that 
this  gospel  was  written  long  after  the  fall  of  Jeru- 
salem, and  the  permeation  of  the  Grceco-Roman 
world  with  the  message  of  Christianity.  It  was  thus 
impossible  for  the  able  man  who  wrote  this  gospel 
to  ignore  the  new  situation  which  had  been  created, 
namely,  that  Christianity  had  now  become  a 
universal  religion.  Some  of  you  may  be  surprised 
to  hear  that  this  was  not  so  from  the  first.  You 
have  been  accustomed,  perhaps,  to  take  for  granted, 
like  most  of  our  fellow-Christians,  that  the  religion 
in  which  we  have  been  brought  up  has  always  been 
much  the  same  as  it  is  now.  You  may  think  of  it 
as  having  come  into  the  world  as  a  full-blown 
system  of  doctrine,  so  to  speak,  intended  for  all 
mankind,  and  preached  as  such  by  missionaries 
who  w^ent  forth  from  Jerusalem  to  every  part  of  the 
known  world.  If  so,  you  are  mistaken.  The  little 
group  of  Christians  who  first  met  in  Jerusalem  did 
not  look  upon  their  gospel  in  any  such  way.  What 
they  thought  they  had  to  do  was  to  preach  the 
Kingdom  of  God  to  their  own  countrymen ;  they 
did  not  look  beyond  the  borders  of  their  own  nation. 
They  worked  for,  and  expected  to  see,  an  ideal 
human  society,  a  regenerated  Israel  with  its  capital 
in  Jerusalem,  but  they  did  not  think  of  including 


SOWING   AND    REAPING  157 

Gentiles  within  the  scope  of  its  benefits  unless  they 
became  Jews.  Before  long,  however,  circumstances 
became  too  much  for  them.  The  new  religious 
revival  could  not  be  contained  within  such  narrow 
bounds;  it  broke  through  and  began  to  spread 
everywhere  as  the  glad  tidings  of  a  heaven  on  earth 
with  Jesus  as  its  king.  Of  course,  the  great  instru- 
ment in  bringing  this  about  was  the  apostle  Paul 
— and  he  had  to  fight  hard  with  the  nationalist 
party  in  order  to  carry  the  point — but,  perhaps,  the 
moral  force  behind  the  new  movement  would  have 
done  it  in  any  case.  Paul  and  those  who  sym- 
pathised with  him  carried  the  Christian  gospel  to 
the  furthest  confines  of  the  world-wide  Roman 
Empire  in  a  few  short  years.  This  process  was 
accelerated  by  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  and 
the  consequent  downfall  of  Jewish-nationalist  hopes 
in  A.D.  70.  Henceforth  it  was  clearly  impossible  to 
think  of  Judaea  as  the  limit  within  which  Chris- 
tianity could  be  established,  for  the  Jews  were  now 
a  scattered  race,  and  had  not  accepted  Christianity 
in  any  great  numbers.  From  this  point,  therefore, 
Christianity  became  far  more  a  Gentile  than  a 
Jewish  religion ;  in  fact,  it  had  become  practically 
transplanted  to  Greek  and  Roman  soil,  and  had 
lost  its  original  connection  with  Judaism. 

Now,  please  understand  that  this  consummation 
is  what  the  writer  of  the  fourth  gospel  really  had 
in  mind  when  he  wrote  my  text.  This  man  was 
not  a  Jew  at  all,  and  he  certainly  could  not  have 
known  much  about  Samaria.  He  did  not  begin  to 
write  until  Christianity  was  already  a  considerable 
force  .in  the  Roman  Empire  and  growing  rapidly 


158  SOWING    AND    REAPING 

stronger  every  day.  All  the  illustrations  he  makes 
use  of  in  his  gospel  are  meant  to  bear  upon  this 
state  of  things.  This  Samaritan  woman  and  her 
friends  and  neighbours  stand  for  the  religions  and 
philosophies  of  the  whole  Gentile  world.  The 
Christian  missionaries  had  now  discovered  in  these 
a  practically  unlimited  field  of  activity,  and  had  set 
themselves  the  task  of  winning  them  all  for  Jesus. 
The  ancient  pagan  civilisation  was  ripe  and  ready 
for  the  new  word  of  hope  and  inspiration  which  the 
Christians  had  to  offer ;  it  was  far  more  sympathetic 
to  it  than  the  Jews  had  been.  People  were  tired 
of  the  futilities  and  insincerities  of  pagan  worship. 
No  one  really  believed  in  the  old  gods,  and  philo- 
sophy was  a  poor  substitute  for  the  zeal  and  en- 
thusiasm of  religious  faith.  The  subjects  of  the 
mighty  Roman  empire  found  themselves  standing 
between  two  worlds — one  dead,  the  other  powerless 
to  be  born.  Thoughtful  men  were  pessimistic. 
There  was  no  whole-hearted  zeal  and  enterprise 
anywhere,  no  cause  which  could  arouse  self-sacrific- 
ing devotion.  Into  this  weary  and  dispirited 
civilisation  Christianity  leaped  with  a  vigour  and 
energy  that  commanded  an  instant  hearing ;  it  was 
then  pretty  much  in  intensity  and  belief  in  the  future 
what  Socialism  is  now,  and  it  spread  like  a  prairie 
fire.  This  is  what  is  alluded  to  in  my  text,  and  the 
words  are  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus  Himself.  In 
this  passage  the  writer  describes  exactly  what  was 
going  on  under  his  eyes. 

"  Say  not  ye.  There  are  yet  four  months,  and 
then  Cometh  harvest  ?  Behold,  I  say  unto  you, 
Lift  up  your  eyes,  and  look  on  the  fields  :    for  they 


SOWING    AND    REAPING  159 

are  white  already  to  harvest.  And  he  that  reapeth 
receiveth  wages,  and  gathereth  fruit  unto  life 
eternal :  that  both  he  that  soweth  and  he  that 
reapeth  may  rejoice  together.  And  herein  is  that 
saying  true:  One  soweth  and  another  reapeth.  I 
sent  you  to  reap  that  whereon  ye  bestowed  no 
labour  :  other  men  laboured,  and  ye  are  entered  into 
their  labours." 

What  chiefly  interests  me  about  this  remarkable 
paragraph  is  that  it  is  a  very  vivid  and  accurate 
description  by  an  intelligent  and  earnest  man  of  a 
situation  which  was  actually  in  progress  at  the 
moment  when  he  wrote.  If  he  were  writing  for  the 
Daily  News  or  the  Daily  Chronicle  to-day,  with  the 
same  state  of  things  before  him,  he  might  do  it  in 
some  such  terms  as  the  following  :  Fellow-Chris- 
tians, you  are  rather  too  ready  to  speak  vaguely  of 
a  future  time  when  God  shall  establish  His  king- 
dom with  power  and  give  us  the  harvest  which 
Christ  has  sown.  But  is  there  not  a  harvest  which 
we  can  begin  to  reap  now  ?  Look  at  the  teeming 
population  of  the  vast  cities  of  the  world-wide 
empire  to  which  we  belong.  All  these  people  are 
sick  and  tired  of  the  platitudes  and  convention- 
alities of  the  older  faiths.  They  know  there  is 
nothing  in  them,  and  that  they  have  no  power  to 
stir  the  human  heart  to  higher  things.  They  con- 
tain no  evangel,  no  promise  for  the  future,  no  de- 
mand upon  the  best  and  deepest  in  their  adherents. 
The  people  are  ready  and  willing  to  listen  to  the 
true  note  if  you  can  sound  it.  Jesus  has  something 
to  say  to  the  world ;  let  us  say  it  with  all  our  might 
and  the  world  will  hear.     We  shall  see  fruit  of  our 


i6o  SOWING   AND    REAPING 

labours  at  once,  for  the  fields  are  white  unto  har- 
vest. Great  souls  of  ages  past  have  sown  that  we 
may  reap.  Socrates  and  Plato,  not  to  speak  of 
many  other  wise  and  great  leaders  of  the  people, 
have  prepared  the  way  for  our  Master.  Let  us  take 
full  advantage  of  it.  It  must  be  His  will  that  we 
should  reap  for  Him  what  others  have  sown.  In 
fact,  His  harvest  is  their  harvest  too,  and  sowers 
and  reapers  shall  all  rejoice  together. 

I  think  this  was  a  most  inspiring  utterance  and 
quite  in  keeping  with  the  best  that  the  Alexandrian 
fathers  of  the  Church  were  accustomed  to  say  about 
the  relation  between  the  Christian  gospel  and  the 
noblest  Greek  thought.  Indeed  it  is  unquestion- 
able that  the  new  religion  absorbed  and  glorified 
that  thought  almost  without  knowing  it;  in  a  cer- 
tain sense  Christianity  owes  as  much  to  Greek  and 
Roman  minds  as  it  does  to  the  prophets  of  ancient 
Israel ;  both  streams  met  and  became  a  mighty 
flood  in  the  religion  of  Jesus.  The  best  and  most 
enlightened  of  the  early  Christian  workers  knew 
this,  and  considered  themselves  the  inheritors  of 
the  pagan  moralists  as  well  as  of  the  Jewish 
preachers.  All  belonged  to  Jesus,  and  was  part  of 
the  sowing  in  preparation  for  His  harvest. 

This  consideration  brings  me  to  the  further  point 
already  suggested  at  the  beginning  of  the  sermon, 
namely,  the  solidarity  of  mankind  in  the  sowing 
and  reaping  of  good  and  evil.  How  far  can  we 
ever  benefit  or  suffer  alone  ?  Can  any  human  being 
be  either  rewarded  or  punished  individually  ?  Is 
there  such  a  thing  as  reaping  exactly  what  you 
have  sown  without  relation  to  any  one  else  ?     If  so, 


SOWING    AND    REAPING  i6i 

where  does  redemption  come  in,  and  what  is  it? 
What  does  forgiveness  involve,  and  how  does  it 
take  effect  ?     To  put  the  matter  in  a  nutshell — how 
far  is  individual  reward  or  retribution  consistent 
with  vicarious  suffering  as  the  means  of  salvation  ? 
There  is  no  need  to  deal  with  these  questions  in 
detail.     All  that  is  required  is  that  we  should  make 
sure  of  the  general  principle  to  which  to  refer  them. 
In  order  to  clear  the  ground  for  the  examination  of 
that  principle  let  us  remind  ourselves  of  the  way  in 
which  the  subject  is  familiarly  presented  in  Chris- 
tian preaching.     In  stating  it  I  wish  you  to  believe 
that  it  is  far  from  my  intention  to  belittle  it,  for 
it  enshrines  a  truth  whose  moral  power  has  been 
demonstrated  without  ceasing  in  the  history  of  the 
Christian  Church.    In  popular  parlance  it  might  not 
unfairly  be  presented  thus  :     We  are  all  sinners, 
and  to  some  extent,  even  in  this  world,  we  must 
suffer  for  our  sins.     But  we  need  not  reap  exactly 
what  we  have  sown.     We  have  a  representative  and 
substitute   with    God,    Jesus   Christ   the   righteous 
One,  who  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins  provided 
we  accept   Him  as  such.     Faith  in  Jesus  secures 
pardon  and  justification  ;  the  Redeemer  takes  upon 
Himself  the  responsibility  for  all  that  we  have  done 
amiss,  and  His  merits  are  imputed  to  us.     There  is 
thus  no  necessity  for  reaping  what  we  have  sown, 
if  we  only  avail  ourselves  of  the  plan  of  redemption. 
As  the  old  evangelistic  hymn  has  it — 

Nothing  either  great  or  small, 

Nothing,  sinner,  no  ; 
Jesus  did  it,  did  it  all, 

Long,  long  ago; 

II 


i62  SOWING   AND    REAPING 

Now  to  call  this  belief  absolutely  false  is  impossible 
and  wrong.  It  is  not  false,  but  we  ought  to  try 
and  find  out  in  what  way  it  is  true.  To  believe  it 
without  seeing  why  and  in  what  sense  it  is  reason- 
able is  not  a  very  lofty  way  of  believing  it.  And 
yet  it  has  thrilled  innumerable  hearts,  awakened  in- 
numerable consciences,  and  brought  men  into  holy 
relationship  with  God  as  no  other  doctrine  has  ever 
done.  I  doubt  not  that  there  are  some  people 
listening  to  me  this  morning  to  whom  this  way  of 
putting  the  truth  about  human  salvation  is  unspeak- 
ably precious,  and  if  they  want  to  call  out  and  say 
so  I  should  not  object  in  the  least ;  in  fact,  I  should 
feel  like  joining  with  them.  But  you  will  admit 
that  there  are  others  here  to  whom  such  a  statement 
means  nothing,  or,  if  it  means  anything,  stands  for 
something  unjust  and  immoral.  Such  as  these 
would  tell  you  that  it  does  not  help  them  at  all  to 
be  assured  that  Jesus  bore  their  sins  in  His  own 
body  on  the  tree,  and  that  in  consequence  they  will 
be  relieved  from  some  penalty  in  the  world  to  come 
for  the  evil  they  have  wrought  here.  They  cannot 
understand  how  God  can  rightly  demand  such  a 
substitutionary  sacrifice,  or  in  what  way  it  could 
.effect  its  object  if  He  did.  What  conceivable  rela- 
tion is  there  between  a  few  hours  of  agony  on  a 
Roman  gibbet  nineteen  hundred  years  ago,  and  all 
the  punishment  of  all  the  wickedness  of  the  human 
race  for  thousands  of  years  before  and  thousands  of 
years  yet  to  come?  You  can  see,  therefore,  with- 
out much  difficulty  that  even  on  moral  grounds 
strong  objection  can  be  taken,  and  is  being  taken, 
by  robust  and  healthy  minds  to  the  doctrine  that  in 


SOWING    AND    REAPING  163 

some  mysterious  way  Christ  has  reaped  beforehand 
the  harvest  of  all  the  evil  which  you  and  I  are 
sowing  to-day,  and  that  therefore  we  need  not  do 
so  ourselves. 

But  there  are  still  further  objections  to  the 
accepted  doctrine  as  popularly  stated,  and  not  the 
least  of  these  is  the  fact  that  in  the  New  Testament 
itself  plain  and  emphatic  assertions  are  made  which 
are  totally  inconsistent  with  it.  Take,  for  example, 
the  well-known  passage  in  Galatians  vi.  7  :  "Be 
not  deceived ;  God  is  not  mocked  :  for  whatsoever 
a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap.  For  he  that 
soweth  to  his  flesh  shall  of  the  flesh  reap  corrup- 
tion; but  he  that  soweth  to  the  Spirit  shall  of  the 
Spirit  reap  eternal  life."  Here  is  certainly  no 
justification  for  the  belief  that  a  death-bed  repent- 
ance and  faith  in  the  merits  of  a  Redeemer  will 
compensate  for  a  wicked  life.  But  in  the  recorded 
words  of  Jesus  Himself  are  warnings  equally  ex- 
plicit, as,  for  example,  Matthew  v.  25,  26 : 
*'  Agree  with  thine  adversary  quickly,  whiles  thou 
art  in  the  way  with  him ;  lest  at  any  time  the 
adversary  deliver  thee  to  the  judge,  and  the  judge 
deliver  thee  to  the  officer,  and  thou  be  cast  into 
prison.  Verily  I  say  unto  thee,  Thou  shalt  by  no 
means  come  out  thence,  till  thou  hast  paid  the 
uttermost  farthing."  This  paying  of  the  utter- 
most farthing  does  not  at  all  consist  with  the 
popular  presentation  of  a  full  and  free  salvation 
secured  by  faith  alone.  Whatever  else  it  may  mean 
it  certainly  contradicts  the  idea  thct  a  wrong-doer 
can  go  scot-free  by  the  simple  expedient  of  rolling 
the  burden  upon  somebody  else.     How  remarkable, 


i64  SOWING   AND    REAPING 

too,  is  the  suggestion  that  the  payment  of  the  utter- 
most farthing  is  possible !  According  to  what  we 
have  been  usually  taught,  the  sinner  cannot  pay 
and  cannot  come  out  of  his  prison  house.  The 
retributive  justice  of  God,  so  we  are  told,  does  not 
provide  for  the  release  of  any  culprit  by  any  pay- 
ment of  his  own.  And  yet  here  stand  the  words 
of  Jesus  as  an  explicit  declaration  to  the  contrary. 
It  must  be  admitted,  too,  that  the  theory  that  a  bad 
man  can  get  off,  or  ought  to  get  off,  the  conse- 
quences of  his  guilty  acts  by  making  a  sort  of  deal 
with  providence,  who  has  been  kind  enough  to 
provide  a  scape-goat,  is  repugnant  to  the  better 
feelings  of  all  right-minded  men.  That  eminent 
theologian,  Mark  Twain,  has  some  scathing  things 
to  say  about  it  in  his  book,  More  Tramps  Abroad. 
I  make  no  apology  for  introducing  that  master  of 
the  human  heart  into  a  sermon ;  his  moral  instincts 
are  those  of  the  ordinary  manly,  high-minded 
citizen  of  to-day.  Describing  a  barbarous  murder 
by  highwaymen,  he  concludes  by  giving  the  text 
of  the  confession  of  one  of  them  after  receiving 
sentence  of  death  in  a  court  of  law.  The  confession 
ended  with  a  pious  profession  of  confidence  in  the 
murderer's  eternal  salvation  through  the  blood  of 
Christ.  His  victims  had  not  had  time  to  get  con- 
verted and  make  sure  of  heaven  in  the  same  way. 
Mark  points  out  this  fact,  and  sarcastically  com- 
ments upon  it  as  follows  :  "  His  redemption  was 
a  very  real  thing  to  him,  and  he  was  as  jubilantly 
happy  on  the  gallows  as  ever  was  Christian  martyr 
at  the  stake.  We  dwellers  in  this  world  are 
strangely  made,  and  mysteriously  circumstanced. 


SOWING   AND    REAPING  165 

We  have  to  suppose  that  the  murdered  men  are 
lost,  and  that  the  murderer  is  saved;  but  we  cannot 
suppress  our  natural  regrets  !" 

One  thing  more  before  I  leave  this  part  of  my 
subject.  Look  out  into  the  world  and  you  will  see 
some  men  reaping  what  they  have  sown  without 
waiting  for  a  future  heaven  or  hell,  and  no  amount 
of  faith  in  Christ  has  saved  them  from  it.  Repent- 
ance does  not  give  the  drunkard  back  his  wrecked 
constitution ;  it  does  not  restore  the  corrupt  body 
of  the  sensualist  as  the  flesh  of  a  little  child;  it 
does  not  screen  any  man  from  the  slow  and  deadly 
working  of  the  effects  of  the  life  he  has  lived  in  the 
service  of  gain — he  has  become  like  his  pursuits, 
and  cannot  be  otherwise.  "  Be  sure  your  sin  will 
find  you  out."  How  often  the  guilty  secret  comes 
to  light  and  blasts  a  promising  career  !  How  re- 
lentless seems  the  judgment  that  occasionally  over- 
takes the  man  who  has  wilfully  followed  a  wrong 
course  !  How  often  a  lovable  character  conjoined 
to  high  ability  has  been  utterly  wasted  so  far  as  this 
world  is  concerned  by  some  one  foolish  step  taken 
in  an  hour  of  sinful  delirium  ?  It  is  not  impossible 
that  there  are  some  listening  to  me  at  this  moment 
whose  chance  in  life  was  forfeited  long  ago  by  some 
act  of  wicked  folly  performed  under  the  stress  of 
temptation — some  woman,  perhaps,  or  some  trifling 
with  a  trust  committed  to  your  charge.  Do  you 
want  to  tell  me  that  the  lifelong  retribution  which 
follows  upon  such  departures  from  rectitude  is  not 
an  awful  reality  ?  It  avails  nothing  to  say  that  it 
appears  to  fall  spasmodically,  and  that  some  of  the 
worst  of  men  go  unpunished  all  their  days.     If  it 


i66  SOWING    AND    REAPING 

falls  at  all  it  surely  knocks  the  bottom  out  of  all 
easy  conventional  theories  about  laying  our  sins  on 
Jesus  or  anybody  else. 

Here,  then,  we  come  sharp  up  against  a  formidable 
problem.  We  have  seen  that  belief  in  the  redeem- 
ing work  of  Jesus  has  been  the  dynamic  of  most  of 
the  noblest  and  richest  spiritual  experience  of  past 
and  present;  we  see  too  that  the  way  it  is  usually 
preached  is  repellent  to  the  moral  instincts  of  the 
ordinary  man  of  to-day,  and  does  not  square  with 
his  knowledge  of  life  or  his  sense  of  justice.  More- 
over, on  the  authority  of  Jesus  Himself  we  are 
warned  that  we  shall  inevitably  reap  what  we  sow. 
How  are  we  to  reconcile  all  this?  One's  heart 
sinks  at  the  thought  that  no  saviour  can  help  us, 
and  that  individually  we  shall  have  to  endure  here 
or  hereafter,  the  full  and  unescapable  penalty  of  all 
the  evil  we  have  wrought.  There  is  not  much 
gospel  in  such  an  assurance;  it  may  fill  us  with 
fear,  but  it  does  not  kindle  hope  and  love.  Is  that 
the  whole  truth  ?     Is  there  nothing  better  ? 

Well,  I  am  sure  there  is,  and  I  will  try  to  state 
it  to  you  as  clearly  as  I  see  it  myself.  It  is  this  : 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  individual  retribution  or 
individual  salvation.  For  good  or  for  evil  the 
human  race  is  a  solidarity ;  we  are  all  members 
one  of  another;  we  suffer  and  achieve  in  common. 
There  is  no  heaven  that  does  not  imply  willingness 
to  share  the  sinner's  hell;  there  is  no  hell  that  is 
not  heaven  in  the  making.  God  has  no  interest  in 
punishment  as  such,  and  no  evil-doer  can  bear  his 
punishment  alone.  Indeed,  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  punishment  in  the  sense  that  so  much  pain  must 


SOWING   AND    REAPING  167 

be  endured  for  so  much  sin.  There  is  nothing  in 
which  popular  thinking  goes  more  widely  wrong 
than  this.  We  frequently  jump  to  the  conclusion 
that  when  a  man  does  an  evil  deed  he  ought  to  be 
visited  with  an  appropriate  penalty  after  the  clumsy 
fashion  of  human  justice,  but  that  is  not  God's 
way  at  all.  Retribution  is  meaningless  except  as  a 
method  of  awakening  the  soul  to  its  true  condition ; 
as  soon  as  that  is  done  the  purpose  of  retribution  is 
fully  served.  Is  there  not  a  great  relief  in  the 
thought  that  in  judgment  our  heavenly  Father 
remembers  mercy?  Just  make  sure  of  that  one 
principle,  and  you  are  on  the  track  of  the  real 
significance  of  the  redeeming  work  of  Jesus.  Let 
me  show  you  what  I  mean.  God's  whole  purpose 
with  mankind  may  be  summed  up  in  saying  that 
He  seeks  to  realise  a  universal  fellowship  of  love. 
Nothing  short  of  this  can  satisfy  Him  or  ourselves. 
Jesus  saw  this  plainly  when  He  went  about  Galilee 
long  ago  preaching  the  gospel  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  But  how  is  that  fellowship  to  be  achieved? 
How  can  it  be  achieved  otherwise  than  by  the  will- 
ingness of  those  who  see  it  to  labour  and  suffer  for 
those  who  do  not  ?  Even  with  a  partial  and  limited 
vision  of  the  results  to  be  gained  this  is  what  a  good 
man  would  always  wish  to  do.  It  is  no  true  good- 
ness that  would  settle  down  to  enjoy  heaven  while 
any  kind  of  hell  remained.  See  then  how  the 
matter  presented  itself  to  Jesus.  He  saw,  as  we 
see  to-day,  that  most  of  the  suffering  of  the  world 
was  caused  by  human  selfishness  and  blindness. 
He  saw  that,  instead  of  getting  together  and  helping 
one  another  with  all  their  might,  men  were  trying 


i68  SOWING    AND    REAPING 

to  rob  and  injure  one  another,  with  the  result  that 
history  was  one  long  series  of  crimes  and  miseries, 
with  here  and  there  a  gleam  of  moral  splendour 
derived  from  the  discovery  that  individual  life  has 
no  meaning  apart  from  the  whole.  Jesus  saw  that 
earth  was  hell  already  because  of  these  things,  and 
that  it  would  never  become  heaven  until  men  had 
learned  to  find  their  true  interest  and  their  true  joy 
in  the  service  of  all,  which  is  the  service  of  God. 
It  was  as  though  He  said  to  Himself :  There  is  no 
human  being  whose  burden  I  would  not  take  if  I 
could,  and  so  long  as  selfishness  is  producing  hell 
I  will  stay  in  that  hell  and  labour  to  turn  it  into 
heaven ;  I  will  act  as  though  every  evil  consequence 
of  human  waywardness  were  my  due;  I  shall  will- 
ingly bear  anything  and  everything  that  will  make 
the  burden  of  humanity  a  little  less  heavy  and 
enable  men  to  see  with  clear  eyes  where  true 
blessedness  is  to  be  found.  Anyhow^  this  was 
what  Jesus  did,  and  in  doing  it  He  showed  the 
world  what  true  humanity  really  is.  There  is  only 
one  word  that  would  adequately  describe  that  true 
humanity  wherever  you  find  it,  and  it  is  Christ. 
The  Christ  spirit  in  man  is  that  which  does  what 
Jesus  did,  accepts  anything  and  everything  in  the 
service  of  love.  The  man  who  is  possessed  by  that 
spirit  does  not  pause  to  inquire  who  deserves  what  ; 
he  just  goes  on  working  as  though  all  the  dis- 
abilities of  the  race  were  his  very  own.  In  a  selfish 
world  this  necessarily  involves  a  Calvary  some  time 
or  other,  but  the  Christ-man  cannot  shrink  from 
it,  and  cannot  draw  any  line  of  distinction  between 
his  own  lot  and  that  of  other  people.     His  part  is 


SOWING    AND    REAPING  169 

to  act  as  though  the  whole  burden  of  the  whole  race 
were  his  own,  and  as  though  all  the  consequences 
of  human  wickedness  were  justly  visited  upon  his 
head.  This  is  no  light  matter,  but  to  stop  short 
of  it  is  to  miss  the  highest  of  which  human  nature 
is  capable. 

Now,  see  what  follows  from  this.  It  is  a  glorious 
fact  that  a  man  is  saved  in  the  true  sense  as  soon 
as  he  becomes  possessed  by  that  spirit,  and  he  can 
hardly  be  said  to  be  saved  until  he  does.  And  it 
is  that  spirit  which  is  saving  the  world,  just  as  the 
contrary  spirit  is  the  cause  of  the  darkness  and  pain 
of  the  world.  All  men  are  capable  of  showing  the 
Christ  spirit  at  times,  but  it  is  only  as  they  begin 
to  see  and  to  enter  into  the  full  meaning  of  the 
Christ  life  that  they  can  properly  be  said  to  be 
saviours.  Jesus  has  made  more  saviours  than  all 
the  masters  of  mankind  put  together,  but  even  He 
knew  that  He  stood  in  a  grand  historic  succession. 
There  were  those  before  Him  who,  though  with  a 
more  limited  vision,  had  accepted  the  cross  in  the 
service  of  their  fellow-men,  and  had  freely  given 
their  lives  thereon  in  willing  sacrifice  for  their 
generation.  Were  not  the  Isaiahs  and  Jeremiahs 
of  history  sin-bearers  ?  Five  centuries  and  a  half 
before  Jesus  was  born  this  truth  was  clearly  seen 
by  the  man  who  wrote  in  words  that  the  world  will 
never  let  die:  ''Surely  He  hath  borne  our  griefs 
and  carried  our  sorrows;  the  chastisement  of  our 
peace  was  upon  Him,  and  with  His  stripes  we  are 
healed."  The  cumulative  effect  of  the  witness  and 
suffering  of  all  the  seers  and  servants  of  the  race, 
from  the  dawn  of  history  until  to-day,  is  the  true 


170  SOWING   AND    REAPING 

work  of  Christ,  and  the  true  salvation  of  the  world. 
There  is  no  other  salvation,  and  no  possibility  of 
any  other  than  the  operation  of  the  spirit  that  turns 
sinners  into  saviours  by  rendering  them  willing  to 
bear  all  the  evil  results  of  human  selfishness  in 
order  to  hasten  the  advent  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
There  is  thus  a  solidarity  of  good  as  well  as  a 
solidarity  of  evil,  and  I  want  you  to  see  that  there 
can  be  no  question  of  separating  the  one  from  the 
other.  I  desire  to  put  the  matter  as  vividly  as  ever 
I  can  in  order  that  you  may  appreciate  its  force  and 
realise  what  it  is  that  has  caused  men  to  love  the 
story  of  the  cross  of  Christ.  It  is  indeed  absolutely 
true  that  the  Saviour  can  be  substituted  for  the 
sinner  so  far  as  the  consequences  of  wrong-doing 
are  concerned,  and  you  can  see  the  process  going 
on  around  you  every  day.  The  one  thing  in  which 
no  saviour  can  ever  impute  his  merits  to  the  sinner 
is  in  the  character  of  the  individual  wrong-doer. 
That  is  the  sinner's  very  own,  and  he  cannot  jump 
away  from  it.  In  that  respect  what  he  has  sown 
he  must  reap  all  by  himself;  he  cannot  grow  a  new 
soul  in  five  minutes.  A  man's  thoughts  and  aspira- 
tions make  him  what  he  is,  and  there  is  no  kind  of 
justification  before  God  which  can  free  a  coarse 
and  sensual  nature  from  the  necessity  of  pulling 
down  and  rebuilding.  It  is  not  what  the  soul 
suffers  that  matters;  it  is  what  the  soul  is.  Slowly 
and  toilsomely  the  selfish  man  must  break  through 
the  habits  and  prejudices  in  which  he  has  imprisoned 
his  own  divinity;  step  by  step  he  must  ascend  the 
hill  of  the  Lord.  All  that  love  can  ever  do  is  to 
help  him  along  the  way;    it  cannot  absolve  him 


SOWING   AND    REAPING  171 

from  the  necessity  for  making  the  pilgrimage;  it 
cannot  bear  him  at  a  bound  from  lowest  hell  to 
highest  heaven.  But  when  it  becomes  a  question 
of  sharing  the  suffering  the  sinner  has  caused,  or 
even  bearing  it  for  him,  saviourhood  can  never 
hesitate.  It  must  just  enter  into  it  and  endure  it 
until  the  last  barrier  has  been  passed  and  no  mor« 
sorrow  remains.  There  is  no  question  of  mine  and 
thine  in  the  matter;  true  Christhood  will  seek  to 
bear  all  without  making  any  terms  or  claiming  any 
exemption  ;  in  fact,  the  nearer  any  soul  approaches 
to  the  moral  stature  of  Jesus  the  more  eager  and 
willing  it  will  become  to  endure  the  worst  in  the 
service  of  the  best.  And  here,  perhaps,  is  the 
truest  road  of  emancipation  for  any  human  being 
who  is  struggling  out  of  selfishness  into  the  eternal 
light  and  love.  No  man  can  ever  bear  the  entire 
consequences  of  his  own  wrong-doing,  but  he  can 
bear  other  people's,  and  the  nobler  he  grows  the 
more  he  will  want  to  do  it.  This  is  the  very  soul 
of  the  Christian  evangel  and  the  secret  of  its  power. 
What  Jesus  did  all  men  will  have  to  become  willing 
to  do  before  the  victory  of  good  over  evil  can  be 
finally  won.  Jesus  suffered  nothing  on  Calvary 
which  every  good  man  has  not  also  to  suffer  in  his 
degree.  We  are  individually  and  collectively  the 
beneficiaries  of  every  self-sacrificing  life  which  has 
ever  been  lived,  and  every  noble  death  which  has 
ever  been  died,  in  every  age  of  the  world.  The 
crucifixion  of  Christ  is  as  long  as  human  history, 
and  millions  of  the  sons  of  God  have  shed  their 
blood  therein.  It  is  going  on  now,  and  will  go  on 
until  divine  love  has  completely  triumphed  over 


172  SOWING   AND   REAPING 

human  sin.  Yes,  and  that  will  be  a  day  of  exulta- 
tion. For  there  is  a  further  and  deeper  sense  in 
which  he  that  soweth  and  he  that  reapeth  shall 
rejoice  together,  and  that  is  that  sinner  and  saviour 
— the  one  who  sowed  the  pain  and  the  one  who  bore 
it — shall  leap  to  one  another  in  the  glad  fellowship 
of  eternal  love. 

Do  we  not  all  know  it?  Is  it  not  true  that  we 
are  bearing  the  consequences  of  one  another's  mis- 
deeds whether  we  will  or  no  ?  Are  there  not  people 
in  this  church  at  this  moment  who  are  sufferers 
because  of  other  people's  wrong-doing?  And  are 
not  some  of  you  conscious  that  your  wrong-doing 
has  caused  many  a  pang  in  the  hearts  of  those  who 
love  you  ?  There  are  those  here  who  have  been 
beggared  by  other  people's  profligacy;  here,  too, 
are  the  victims  of  other  people's  lust  and  covetous- 
ness.  ''  Herein  is  the  saying  true,  one  soweth  and 
another  reapeth."  You  know  it  to  be  true;  you 
cannot  help  knowing  it.  Well,  now,  let  me  tell 
you  how  to  face  it.  You  can  either  face  it  like  Jesus, 
or  like  the  thief  who  cursed  Him  as  he  hung  dying 
beside  him;  there  is  no  middle  way.  One  conse- 
quence of  the  sin  of  the  world  was  that  very  cruci- 
fixion on  Calvary.  Jesus  just  accepted  it,  know- 
ing well  that  He  did  not  deserve  it,  but  willing  to 
suffer  as  though  He  did.  Is  it  not  the  same  to-day 
wherever  nobleness  of  heart  and  the  love  that 
passeth  knowledge  are  willing  to  reap  the  harvest 
of  pain  that  others  have  sown  ?  It  is  that  willing- 
ness to  suffer  that  makes  all  the  difference  between 
heaven  and  hell.  The  acceptance  of  injustice, 
poverty,    misfortune,    ruin,    the  very  extremity  of 


SOWING   AND   REAPING  173 

evil,  rather  than  become  a  cynic,  desert  a  post,  or 
cease  to  be  a  behever  in  what  is  right  and  good,  is 
to  put  forth  the  saving  power  of  God.  Even  if  you 
are  a  poor  faulty  soul  yourself  you  belong  to  Christ 
the  moment  you  are  willing  to  do  that.  Make  it 
the  keynote  of  your  life,  and  it  will  fill  it  with  glory. 
Throw  all  your  individual  interest  into  the  scale  of 
good  in  its  conflict  with  evil,  and  you  shall  know 
what  it  is  to  be  saved  yourself.  For  it  is  the  living 
Christ  that  does  all  this  in  you,  as  He  has  done 
it  in  millions  before  you  into  whose  labours  and 
sorrows  you  have  entered  now.  Be  as  faithful  as 
you  can  in  your  brief  hour  of  service  to  what  the 
world  has  seen  in  Jesus,  and  by  and  by  you  shall 
enter  into  the  eternal  fellowship  of  those  whose 
greatest  gladness  it  is  to  have  been  counted  worthy 
to  suffer  with  Him,  that  He  and  they  might  be 
glorified  together. 

A  picket  frozen  on  duty, 

A  mother  starved  for  her  brood, 

Socrates  drinking  the  hemlock, 
And  Jesus  on  the  rood. 

And  the  millions  who,  humble  and  nameless. 
The  straight,  hard  pathway  trod; 

Some  of  us  call  it  duty, 
And  others  call  it  God. 


XII         / 

CHRIST   DYING   FOR  SINNERS 

"  For  scarcely  for  a  righteous  7nan  will  07ie  die :  yet 
peradventure  for  a  good  inan  some  would  even  dare  to 
die.  But  God  commendeth  His  love  toward  us.,  in  that, 
while  we  were  yet  sinners^  Christ  died  for  us.^^ — RoM. 
V.  7-8. 

This  great  evangelical  saying  is  perfectly  clear 
and  intelligible  just  at  it  stands,  but  to  realise  its 
true  bearing  we  ought  not  to  consider  it  apart  from 
its  context.  There  is  a  vast  background  of  religious 
ideas  here  which  have  to  be  taken  into  account  in 
order  to  appreciate  the  force  of  one  such  utterance 
as  this  text  of  ours.  It  is  hardly  possible  for  us 
in  the  time  at  our  disposal  this  morning  to  touch 
upon  more  than  a  few  of  those  ideas,  but  we  must 
not  ignore  them  altogether  on  the  mistaken  assump- 
tion that  our  text  can  be  sliced  away  from  them,  so 
to  speak,  and  become  its  own  explanation.  This 
whole  epistle  is  a  carefully  woven  piece  of  reason- 
ing, starting  from  certain  premises  and  leading  to 
fixed  conclusions.  If  you  want  theology  you  have 
certainly  got  it  here,  for  it  is  doctrinal  from  begin- 
ning to  end.  How  remote  it  seems  from  everyday 
life  !  I  do  not  believe  there  are  three  men  in  this 
congregation  who  ever  take  the  trouble  to  read  this 
epistle  through.    You  like  particular  sayings  in  it, 

174; 


CHRIST   DYING    FOR   SINNERS      175 

maybe,  but  you  never  sit  down  to  follow  up  and  lay 
hold  of  the  argument  as  a  whole.  Mind,  I  am  not 
blaming  you  for  the  omission ;  I  only  point  out  the 
fact.  But  this  fact  has  one  bad  result,  namely,  that 
people  go  on  quoting  the  apostle  Paul  without 
realising  that  there  are  very  few  Pauline  sentences 
which  can  be  properly  understood  without  a  careful 
examination  of  the  fabric  of  thought  in  which  they 
appear.  Most  interpreters  of  his  meaning  do  even 
worse;  they  come  to  these  writings  with  their  own 
fabric  of  thought  ready  made,  and  make  use  of 
isolated  Pauline  utterances  to  confirm  it. 

There  is  no  saying  in  the  whole  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament to  which  this  observation  can  be  more  fairly 
applied  than  the  one  which  forms  our  text  this 
morning.  Very  few  people  are  able  to  read  it  with- 
out prejudice  or  with  a  clear  understanding  of  the 
apostle's  whole  subject.  In  the  background  of  our 
minds  there  is  a  system  of  so-called  Christian  belief 
in  which  we  have  been  trained  from  our  youth  up, 
and  which  we  think  we  find  here.  Let  me  remind 
you  of  it  before  I  go  any  farther.  You  must  for- 
give me  for  stating  it  crudely;  I  want  to  state  it 
crudely  in  order  that  you  may  think  of  it  in  its 
unlovely  nakedness.  Here  it  is  :  We  are  all  sin- 
ners. We  became  sinners  before  we  were  born. 
We  could  not  help  it,  but  it  is  no  good  saying  so ; 
we  are  as  guilty  as  if  we  could  help  it.  We  were 
born  in  sin,  but  are  as  much  to  blame  as  though  we 
had  been  born  innocent.  Adam  did  the  mischief 
ages  ago,  and  we  have  inherited  the  consequences. 
God  was  angry  with  Adam  for  bringing  sin  into 
the  world,  and  has  been  angry  with  the  whole  race 


176      CHRIST   DYING    FOR   SINNERS 

ever  since,  although  He  has  alloweH  it  to  go  on 
sinning  and  suffering  for  generations  without  num- 
ber.    He  is  angry  because  He  is  a  God  of  justice. 
His  justice  takes  the  form   of  leaving   individual 
souls  to  suffer  and  struggle  here  for  a  while,  and 
then  at  the  moment  of  death  plunging  them  into  a 
hell  of  everlasting  torment.    But  this  incomprehen- 
sible Being  is  also  a  God  of  love.    How  the  two  are 
to  be  reconciled  is  a  mystery.     One  might  fairly 
question  how  the  Creator  who  let  His  creation  go 
wrong  so  early  in  its  history,  and  prepared  an  end- 
less hell  for  the  victims  of  His  failure,  could  be  at 
the  same  time  a  God  of  love — but  there  it  is,  that  is 
what  we  have  been  told  about  Him.    Because  He  was 
a  God  of  love  He  waited  a  few  thousand  years,  and 
then  sent  His  beloved  Son  to  make  a  restoration 
possible.     This  beloved  Son  is  a  different  kind  of 
son  from  ourselves — in  fact  we  are  not  sons  at  all, 
we  are  only  creatures ;  we  shall  come  to  be  regarded 
as  sons  only  if  we  accept  the  benefits  of  the  redemp- 
tion which  the  real  Son  has  come  to  achieve.    Who 
He  is,  and  how  He  does  the  work,  are  equally  in- 
comprehensible.   The  theologians  have  been  trying 
to  explain  for  nineteen  hundred  years,  and  are  as 
busy  as  ever.     But  the  general  outline  appears  to 
be  as  follows.    The  Son  of  God  is  born  as  a  little 
baby  in  an  entirely  miraculous  way  which  is  sup- 
posed to  be  holier  than  all  other  births;  grows  up 
to  manhood ;  teaches  people  for  a  few  months,  and 
then  submits  to  being  put  to  death  upon  a  cross. 
Only  a  few  people  hear  about  Him  Avhile  He  is 
alive,  and  the  great  majority  of  them  regard  Him 
as  an  ordinary  man ;  some  call  Him  good,  some 


CHRIST   DYING    FOR    SINNERS       177 

call  Him  bad,  and  the  latter  are  powerful  enough 
to  have  him  condemned  as  a  criminal.  They  never 
dream  that  that  condemnation  has  anything  to  do 
with  the  salvation  of  the  world.  But  it  has;  it  turns 
out  afterwards  that  this  was  the  very  thing  He  came 
for.  He  did  not  come  to  teach  people  or  even  to 
live  an  ideal  life — at  any  rate,  these  were  quite  sub- 
ordinate to  His  main  purpose;  He  came  to  die  a 
death.  Those  who  put  Him  to  death  were  quite 
unaware  of  this,  but  their  ignorance  did  not  matter 
in  the  least.  God  accepted  this  death  as  a  full  and 
sufHcient  substitute  for  all  that  sinful  mankind 
would  otherwise  have  had  to  suffer.  Why  He 
should  do  so,  or  why  it  should  be  just  or  reasonable 
to  do  so,  is  not  stated.  This  death,  mind  you,  is 
the  equivalent  of  all  that  the  millions  of  sinners  who 
have  been  born  into  this  world  since  Adam  fell 
would  have  to  endure  to  all  eternity  in  hell.  Why 
it  should  be  so  nobody  can  understand,  we  are  bid- 
den to  accept  it  on  faith.  But  the  amnesty  is  not 
quite  complete,  for  all  that;  there  is  a  condition 
attached  to  it.  We  have  to  "believe."  This  be- 
lieving means  that  we  are  to  claim  the  benefits  of 
this  deliverance  before  we  die,  it  would  be  no  use 
claiming  it  afterwards.  As  it  is  probable  that  only 
a  small  minority  of  the  human  race  have  ever 
availed  themselves  of  this  condition,  we  can  only 
infer  that,  so  far  as  the  majority  are  concerned, 
the  destiny  of  the  race  is  just  what  it  would 
have  been  if  the  Redeemer  had  never  come,  that  is, 
they  have  all  gone,  or  are  going,  to  hell.  Time 
was,  and  not  so  long  ago,  when  preachers  and 
theologians   said   so   with   the   greatest   clearness; 


178      CHRIST   DYING    FOR   SINNERS 

they  do  not  seem  to  know  what  to  say  about  it 
now. 

While  I  have  been  giving  this  rude  outhne  of 
popular  belief  concerning  what  is  presumed  in  my 
text,  I  have  no  doubt  that  some  of  you  have  been 
saying  mentally  that  few  would  put  the  case  so 
baldly  now-a-days.  You  are  quite  right,  and  that 
is  precisely  why  I  have  stated  it.  It  is  still  pre- 
sumed in  Christian  thought,  and  especially  in 
Christian  preaching,  by  men  who  have  really  ceased 
to  believe  it,  if  they  ever  did  believe  it.  They  want 
to  believe  and  disbelieve  it  at  the  same  time.  They 
will  tell  you  that  no  one  nowadays,  of  ordinary  in- 
telligence, believes  in  the  fall  of  Adam  as  an  actual 
historical  event;  nevertheless  they  believe  in  a 
similar  catastrophe  of  some  kind,  though  nobody 
knows  where,  when,  or  how  it  came  about.  They 
concede  that  man's  physical  beginnings  were  as 
lowly  as  those  of  the  brutes,  but  assert  that  at  some 
one  point  in  history  brute  ignorance  made  way  for 
sin,  and  God's  plans  were  frustrated  to  such  an 
extent  that  redemption  became  a  necessity.  They 
go  on  to  admit,  tacitly  if  not  overtly,  that  an  eternal 
hell  is  unthinkable,  but  they  do  not  seem  to  see  that 
as  soon  as  they  have  said  this  the  whole  fabric  of 
the  doctrine  of  redemption  collapses,  for  its  founda- 
tion motive  is  gone.  Then,  when  it  comes  to  a  ques- 
tion of  the  mode  in  which  that  redemption  was 
effected,  they  take  refuge  in  statements  about  the 
mystery  of  the  cross,  without  ever  attempting  to 
give  a  clear  idea  of  what  they  mean.  It  is  this  kind 
of  hazy  and  inconsistent  presentation  of  Christian 
truth  which   is  the  curse  upon   modern   Christian 


CHRIST   DYING    FOR    SINNERS       179 

activity,  and  we  ought  never  to  rest  until  we  have 
put  an  end  to  it.  Men  feel,  and  rightly  feel,  that 
there  is  a  great  truth  underneath  the  Christian  doc- 
trine of  the  cross  of  Christ,  and  they  do  not  want 
to  let  it  go.  But  while  all  this  agglomeration  of 
rubbish,  and  worse  than  rubbish,  gathers  about  it, 
we  shall  never  see  the  true  glory  of  the  simple 
evangel  of  Jesus  as  He  saw  it  Himself.  Last  year 
I  was  present  in  a  great  religious  assembly  which 
(chiefly  as  a  protest  against  my  presence,  I  think) 
rose  and  sang,  '*  When  I  survey  the  wondrous 
cross."  I  sang  it  myself  as  hard  as  any  of  them, 
and  would  sing  it  to-day.  But  there  must  be  no 
half  measures  with  the  lie  that  is  strangling  the 
glorious  spiritual  truth  celebrated  in  those  words 
and  enshrined  in  the  heart  of  my  text. 

Now  turn  to  the  thought  of  the  writer  of  the 
epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  let  us  see  whether  it 
squares  with  the  conventional  belief  we  have  been 
examining.  Here  is  a  surprising  and,  to  me,  inex- 
plicable thing.  There  are  abundance  of  scholars  in 
our  seats  of  learning  and  in  our  Christian  pulpits 
to-day  who  are  quite  well  aware  that  no  man  be- 
lieves, and  no  sensible  man  dare  preach,  the  doc- 
trine of  redemption  as  held  by  the  apostle  Paul — 
supposing  Paul  to  be  the  author  of  this  epistle.  I 
suppose  som.e  of  you  think  that  the  ideas  I  have  just 
been  outlining  are  in  substance  the  same  as  those 
set  forth  in  this  part  of  the  New  Testament;  if  so, 
you  are  mightily  mistaken.  Paul  would  have  re- 
pudiated every  one  of  you  as  heretics.  To  him  the 
fall  was  real  enough,  and  he  knew  nothing  about 
Darwin's   Descent   of  Man,     But   there   was   this 


i8o      CHRIST   DYING   FOR   SINNERS 

difference  between  Paul  and  your  preceptors;  he 
believed  that  the  principal  penalty  of  sin  was  not 
hell,  but  death — physical  death.  Is  not  that  an 
enormous  difference  to  start  with  ?  Here  it  is ;  read 
this  epistle  for  yourself,  but  take  off  your  coloured 
glasses  while  you  do  it.  Like  you,  he  believed  that 
the  death  of  the  Son  of  God  was  the  means  of 
human  redemption,  and  that  sinners  have  individu- 
ally to  believe  in  it  in  order  to  be  saved;  but  see 
what  he  meant  by  salvation.  He  was  not  thinking 
of  deliverance  from  a  future  hell ;  he  was  thinking 
of  deliverance  from  death;  he  wanted  things  to  be 
made  so  that  human  beings  would  not  need  to  die 
any  more.  He  was  not  even  thinking  of  going  to 
heaven.  What  he  wanted  was  that  heaven  should 
come  here,  and  that  all  believers  in  Christ  should 
be  made  immortal  by  having  their  physical  bodies 
transformed  into  something  better.  Here  are  the 
words  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  this  epistle,  and  they 
mean  exactly  what  they  say  :  *'  If  the  Spirit  of  Him 
that  raised  up  Jesus  from  the  dead  dwell  in  you, 
He  that  raised  up  Christ  from  the  dead  shall  also 
quicken  your  mortal  bodies,  by  His  Spirit  that 
dwelleth  in  you."  Could  anything  be  plainer  ?  But 
honestly,  is  there  a  single  man  among  you  who 
believes  that?  Of  course  you  do  not.  It  belongs 
to  a  mode  of  thinking  which  is  as  remote  from  the 
mind  of  the  present  age  as  the  siege  of  Troy.  You 
do  not  believe  that  death  came  into  this  world  in 
any  such  way,  or  that  salvation  consists  primarily 
in  being  enabled  to  live  on  here  for  ever  and  ever. 
And  yet  this  is  the  notion  presumed  in  my  text. 
We  can  see  now  quite  plainly  what  Paul  means  by 


CHRIST   DYING    FOR    SINNERS      i8i 

the  significance  of  the  death  of  Christ  from  his 
point  of  view.  When  Christ  died,  He  died,  accord- 
ing to  Paul,  because  death  was  the  penalty  of  sin. 
There  was  no  question  of  His  dying  to  save  you 
and  me  from  hell ;  neither  was  there  any  question 
as  to  how  much  He  suffered  or  the  manner  of  the 
death  He  died.  Paul's  idea  was  that  if  He  died  at 
all  He  submitted  to  the  death  penalty  which  we,  and 
not  He,  had  justly  incurred.  But  in  doing  this  He 
broke  the  power  of  death,  so  that  henceforth  those 
who  were  joined  to  Him  by  faith  need  not  die  as 
the  rest  of  the  world  would  have  to  die.  This  is  all, 
and  it  does  not  require  much  perspicacity  to  see 
that  there  is  not  a  single  Church  in  Christendom 
which  holds  that  doctrine  to-day. 

But,  having  said  all  this,  I  desire  to  point  out 
that  there  was  something  present  to  Paul's  mind 
which  is  also  present  to  yours  and  mine,  and  which 
has  given  to  doctrines  about  the  death  of  Christ  all 
the  vitality  they  have  ever  possessed.  You  will 
soon  see  what  that  something  was  if  you  look  at  the 
structure  of  this  passage,  and  then  compare  it  with 
what  you  know  of  human  life.  Paul  says  that  it 
was  a  great  thing  for  Christ  to  be  willing  to  die 
for  sinners,  and  he  appeals  to  his  readers  to  say  out 
of  their  own  experience  whether  this  was  not  so. 
He  says  that  people  are  not  often  W'illing  to  die  even 
for  the  sake  of  a  righteous  man,  although  some- 
times a  few  might  dare  to  do  so  for  a  good  man  or 
a  good  cause.  We  need  not  suppose  that  any  im- 
portant distinction  is  here  intended  to  be  drawn  be- 
tween the  righteous  and  the  good;  all  the  writer 
means  is  that  the  majority  of  people  will  not  die 


i82      CHRIST    DYING    FOR   SINNERS 

for  anybody,  but  that  occasionally  some  heroic 
being  does  give  his  life  for  something  great  and 
good.  The  word  **  man  "  is  purposely  left  out  in 
this  second  clause  in  order  to  give  the  word 
**  good  "  a  greater  scope.  Very  likely  Paul  has  in 
mind  the  devotion  of  a  soldier  who  dies  for  his 
general  or  his  country.  The  point  of  the  illustra- 
tion is  that  Christ  was  found  willing  to  die  for 
people  who  were  not  at  all  worthy  of  the  sacrifice ; 
He  did  not  die  for  the  good,  but  for  the  bad.  Paul 
leaps  right  at  the  heart  of  the  matter  when  he  says 
that  this  magnificent  seli-devotion  on  the  part  of 
Jesus  was  a  manifestation  of  the  love  of  God.  I  am 
glad  he  said  that.  It  is  his  perception  of  that  all- 
dominating  truth  that  redeems  his  theologising 
from  mere  superstition,  and  has  given  it  life  and 
power.  This  is  where  our  experience  joins  on  to 
his,  and  helps  us  to  see  how,  underneath  even  the 
most  divers  forms  of  statement,  men  have  always 
been  able  to  see  that  which  was  really  great  and 
good  in  the  relations  of  God  and  man.  He  has 
touched  the  very  point.  The  only  thing  we  know 
about  the  love  of  God,  the  only  proof  we  have  that 
there  is  a  God  of  love  at  all,  is  the  willingness  of 
man  to  die  for  man ;  and  when  we  begin  to  talk 
about  that  we  see  that  the  death  of  Christ  is  the 
expression  of  the  grandest  kind  of  self-oblation  that 
has  ever  been  made  in  the  uplifting  of  mankind  to 
God. 

Let  me  be  perfectly  plain  with  you.  I  do  not 
value  in  the  least  the  intellectual  framework  in 
which  Paul  inserts  this  great  idea.  His  notions 
about   the   fall,    the   connection    between    sin    and 


CHRIST   DYING   FOR   SINNERS      183 

death,  the  wrath  of  God,  and  all  such-like  were  due 
to  his  training.  They  have  done  untold  mischief 
in  Christianity,  and  it  is  time  we  got  rid  of  them. 
Paul  was  great,  not  because  of  these  notions,  but 
in  spite  of  them ;  he  was  great  because  he  saw  right 
to  the  heart  of  the  meaning  of  the  love  of  God,  but 
we  can  see  that  too,  without  subjecting  ourselves  to 
Paul's  theology  or  any  one  else's.  It  is  not  a  matter 
of  theology,  but  of  everyday  experience.  You  can 
see  this  truth  at  work  any  day  you  like,  and  you 
need  not  go  far  to  look  for  it.  I  wonder  what  Jesus 
Himself  would  have  thought  if  He  had  been  told 
of  the  word-spinning  that  would  be  indulged  in, 
in  order  to  provide  a  proper  theory  of  the  way  in 
which  He  came  to  die,  and  what  that  death  would 
effect  for  the  world.  You  may  be  quite  certain 
that  He  would  have  been  astonished  and  even,  per- 
haps, indignant.  He  knew  well  enough  why  it  was 
that  He  had  to  die,  and  so  did  His  adversaries.  He 
had  to  die  because  He  stood  for  a  certain  ideal  in 
human  relations,  and  in  the  relations  of  man  and 
God,  which  His  countrymen  refused  to  accept. 
There  was  nothing  new  in  that  ideal ;  it  had  been 
preached  before,  but  never  so  uncompromisingly 
and  vividly  as  by  Jesus.  It  was  an  old  truth  so 
plainly  stated,  and  so  bravely  lived,  that  it  cut  at 
the  root  of  all  the  shams  and  hypocrisies  of  the 
time.  It  was  simply  this  :  Love  God  and  your 
neighbour;  or  rather,  love  God  in  your  neighbour. 
That  ancient  maxim  was  the  sum  and  substance  of 
all  that  Jesus  had  to  say ;  the  rest  was  simply  a  com- 
mentary upon  it.  He  preached  love,  and  then  set 
to  work  to  show  them  what  love  was.    His  Jewish 


i84      CHRIST   DYING    FOR    SINNERS 

contemporaries  were  looking  for  the  Kingdom  of 
God  on  earth.  So  was  He,  but  He  told  them 
plainly  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  not  what 
they  thought.  He  came  very  near  what  they 
thought,  so  far  as  the  externals  of  the  Kingdom 
were  concerned;  where  Jesus  differed  from  his  critics 
was  that  He  maintained  that  no  kingdom  was  worth 
having  which  did  not  imply  in  every  man  simplicity 
and  humility  of  heart,  and  a  willingness  to  find 
one's  true  joy  in  the  service  of  the  whole.  He 
wanted  individual  men  to  stop  thinking  of  them- 
selves apart  from  human  society  or  from  God,  and 
to  see  instead  that  they  had  no  life  worth  calling 
their  own  until  it  was  given  freely  and  fully  in  the 
service  of  the  common  good.  Even  to-day  that 
teaching  is  ahead  of  human  perceptions,  although 
we  are  beginning  to  see  that  it  is  true,  and  that 
nothing  less  than  that  will  ever  break  our  chains 
and  set  us  free  from  all  the  ills  of  life.  Jesus  man- 
aged to  live  it  Himself.  From  first  to  last  His 
career  moved  along  that  line,  and  when  it  closed  in 
death  it  w^as  only  because  those  who  killed  Him 
could  not  understand  its  greatness.  They  would  not 
kill  Him  to-day,  perhaps;  but  do  not  imagine  that 
they  would  understand  Him  much  better  than  the 
Jews  and  Romans  of  nineteen  hundred  years  ago. 
Few  would  believe,  to  begin  with,  that  He  was 
really  sincere.  If  He  undertook  a  public  ministry, 
as  He  did  then,  we  should  begin  to  question  His 
motives;  we  should  pick  holes  in  His  character; 
should  laugh  at  Him,  call  Him  a  visionary,  a  rogue, 
or  a  fool.  If  the  force  of  His  personality  made  it 
impossible  to  ignore  Him  we  should  begin  to  get 


CHRIST    DYING    FOR    SINNERS      185 

angry.  If  He  pointed  out  with  unerring  finger  the 
unrealities  and  inconsistencies  of  our  ideals  and 
practices,  as  He  did  with  the  Pharisees,  we  should 
plot  and  scheme  to  get  rid  of  Him  or  discredit  Him 
in  the  eyes  of  the  public.  Try  to  imagine  a  per- 
fectly unselfish,  high-souled  man,  with  a  clear 
vision  of  the  wrongs  and  sufferings  of  the  time,  and 
the  will  to  right  them,  and  you  have  Jesus.  Thank 
God  we  have  had  a  fair  number  of  people  who  have 
caught  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  but  never  one,  so  far  as 
we  know,  who  was  so  utterly  lost  and  absorbed  in 
the  good  of  mankind  that  he  might  be  said  to  have 
no  life  but  the  whole.  Yet  such  was  Jesus,  if  we 
are  to  believe  what  tradition  says  of  Him.  A  life 
like  that,  conjoined  to  the  driving  force  of  a  tran- 
scendent personality,  was  sure  to  produce  an  explo- 
sion. It  would  do  so  even  now.  For,  remember, 
if  the  ideal  of  Jesus  were  carried  out  there  would 
no  longer  be  any  question  of  ranks  and  grades  in 
society.  "  He  that  would  be  first  among  you  let 
him  be  last  of  all  and  servant  of  all."  What  a  revo- 
lution !  What  would  become  of  money-making  ? 
All  getting  for  yourself  would  be  utterly  impos- 
sible ;  no  one  would  want  to  do  such  a  thing.  What 
about  Governments  ?  Governments  in  our  sense  of 
the  word  would  disappear  for  ever,  for  men  would 
not  need  to  be  governed.  We  should  have  solved 
the  great  antinomy  between  communal  restraints 
and  individual  freedom ;  we  should  all  be  socialists, 
and  all  anarchists  too,  and  yet  we  should  call  our- 
selves by  neither  name.  No,  it  is  not  at  all  won- 
derful that  Jesus  had  to  die.  His  career  to-day 
would   be   a    living    death    if    He   preached    that 


i86      CHRIST   DYING    FOR   SINNERS 

doctrine  with  the  same  moral  intensity  behind  it,  for 
it  would  go  straight  in  the  teeth  of  every  vested 
interest  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

But,  just  because  He  lived  that  life  and  taught 
that  truth  in  ages  long  ago,  this  world  is  a  sweeter 
place  to  live  in  now,  and,  '*  the  best  is  yet  to  be." 
Life  may  be  sad  and  dark  to  most  of  us,  but  we 
have  seen  the  shining  of  a  great  light,  and  things 
can  never  be  again  as  though  that  light  had  never 
shone.  There  never  has  been  any  moral  dynamic 
comparable  to  the  death  of  Jesus,  measured  by  its 
awakening  effects  in  the  consciences  and  hearts  of 
men.  But  why  should  we  separate  it  from  all  self- 
sacrifice  that  has  ever  taken  place  before  or  since? 
That  brave  love  which  showed  itself  so  grandly  in 
Jesus  was  God  in  humanity,  and  we  have  seen  the 
same  God  a  thousand  times  in  lives  and  deeds 
morally  akin  to  Jesus.  Paul  saw  that  plainly,  and 
so  did  some  of  the  other  New  Testament  writers.  If 
we  want  a  name  for  the  God  in  man  we  cannot  do 
better  than  use  the  word  Christ.  It  is  a  larger  word 
than  Jesus,  although  it  includes  the  latter.  I  cannot 
think  of  Jesus  as  other  than  Christ,  but  neither  can 
I  think  of  Him  as  any  longer  limited  by  the  outlook 
of  the  carpenter  of  Nazareth.  I  think  of  Jesus  now, 
as  Paul  thought  of  Him,  enthroned  above  the  limita- 
tions of  time  and  sense ;  I  see  Him  one  with  God  in 
knowledge  and  power.  But  when  I  ask  how  He  got 
there  I  turn  my  gaze  back  again  to  struggling,  suf- 
fering men  and  women,  and  I  see  love  giving  itself 
in  them  as  He  gave  Himself  long  ago  in  the  days  of 
His  flesh.  Perhaps  there  is  no  one  amongst  us  in 
whom  God  shines  forth  as  plainly  as  He  shone  in 


CHRIST   DYING    FOR    SINNERS      187 

the  earthly  Jesus,  but  He  shines  for  all  that,  and 
wherever  He  shines  I  see  a  Christ.  If  you  want  to 
see  Christ,  the  God  revealed  in  man,  go  to  your  own 
homes;  He  is  there.  Look  into  the  face  of  that 
good  woman  who  loves  you  dearly  without  asking 
herself  why.  Call  to  mind  the  things  you  have 
known  her  to  do  for  you  and  others  in  which  she 
never  counted  the  cost  or  spared  herself.  Think  of 
her  patient  fidelity  in  times  of  trouble  or  misfortune. 
Did  she  ever  think  of  deserting  you  or  leaving  you 
to  face  the  worst  alone  ?  Is  not  this  a  beautiful 
thing,  a  holy  thing,  that  dwells  beside  you  every 
day?  You  are  accustomed  to  take  it  for  granted, 
perhaps,  without  thinking  of  all  that  it  means.  In 
that  same  wife  and  mother  there  may  be  some  other 
things  you  do  not  like  to  see;  a  little  peevishness, 
possibly ;  now  and  then  a  measure  of  unreasonable- 
ness, or  failure  to  understand  what  seems  so  plain 
to  you ;  there  are  hours,  no  doubt,  when  you  feel  as 
though  there  were  a  grievous  lack  somewhere.  Just 
so ;  this  is  not  Jesus,  you  see ;  there  is  nobody  in 
the  wide  world  who  sees  the  highest  and  deepest 
all  the  time,  and  never  fails  in  living  it.  Jesus  was 
Christ  all  the  time,  so  we  are  told.  But  is  there  any 
one  who  is  not  Christ  sovie  of  the  time  ?  If  there 
were  such  a  person  he  would  be  something  less  than 
human.  Show  me  a  being,  however  limited  in  out- 
look and  defective  in  character,  in  w^hom  love  has 
ever  meant  the  willing  acceptance  of  a  cross,  and 
I  will  show  you  something  of  Christ,  and  therefore 
something  of  the  love  of  God.  There  may  be  but 
little  of  it,  but  it  is  there.  It  is  the  one  central  hope 
for  poor  humanity.    In  all  our  filthiness,  meanness. 


i88      CHRIST   DYING    FOR   SINNERS 

brutality,  crooked  ways,  hatred,  scheming,  distrust 
of  one  another,  and  all  that  exhibits  the  mark  of  the 
beast  in  human  nature,  we  need  never  despair  so 
long  as  we  can  discern  that  divine  mystery,  the  love 
of  God  on  the  cross  of  human  ministry  to  human 
need  in  the  midst  of  anguish  and  pain.  We  may 
say,  and  say  truly,  that  the  tragedy  of  Calvary  has 
been  as  long  as  history ;  it  has  never  ceased ;  the 
scourgings,  the  mockings,  and  the  crown  of  thorns 
are  ever  being  inflicted  upon  the  dying  Christ,  and 
from  that  agony  humanity  rises  into  newness  of 
life.  Do  not  speak  of  disbelieving  it;  it  is  not  in 
your  power  to  disbelieve  it;  this  is  no  dogma,  it  is 
a  process  which  is  going  on  every  day  and  hour 
before  your  very  eyes. 

And  yet  even  this  is  not  all.  The  truth  in  my 
text  penetrates  to  a  deeper  stratum  still.  We  all 
know  a  little  of  the  thrill  of  giving  ourselves  in  the 
service  of  some  great  ideal  which  has  power  to  call 
forth  the  best  in  us.  I  do  not  think  it  is  so  rare  as 
Paul  thought  to  find  people  willing. to  die  at  the  call 
of  duty.  The  Queen  of  Portugal  would  have  died 
the  other  day  to  save  her  son,  and  millions  of 
humble  mothers  would  do  the  same.  There  is  never 
any  lack  of  volunteers  for  a  forlorn  hope.  Of  all 
the  hundreds  of  men  here  this  morning  there  are 
few,  if  any,  who  would  not  be  willing  to  give  their 
lives  for  some  one  or  something  outside  the  circle 
of  their  own  immediate  self-interest.  This  is  not  a 
question  for  elaborate  discussion,  nor  can  it  be 
elucidated  in  cold  blood ;  it  is  in  moments  of  great 
emotion  that  men  find  themselves  capable  of  facing 
death  when  something  has  to  be  achieved  that  they 


CHRIST   DYING    FOR    SINNERS      189 

hold  dearer  than  life.  Yes,  there  are  some  things 
for  which  true  men  would  dare  to  die.  They  have 
died  for  liberty,  for  truth  and  honour,  for  a  noble 
leader  or  a  sainted  name.  They  have  died  for  Jesus 
Himself,  and  no  lives  have  ever  been  more  cheer- 
fully given  than  those  which  purchased  the  early 
victories  of  the  cross.  But  Paul  is  quite  right, 
nevertheless.  These  things  are  comparatively  easy 
when  placed  alongside  of  the  call  to  die  for  that 
which  seems  beyond  the  saving,  and  undeserving  of 
the  sacrifice.  When  Jesus  died  on  Calvary,  the 
wretches  for  whom  His  life  was  given  were  spitting 
in  His  face.  They  did  not  see  what  that  life  had 
meant,  and  He  from  whom  they  tore  it  must  have 
felt  as  though  it  were  a  failure.  It  would  not  have 
been  wonderful  if  Jesus  had  died  cursing  His  mur- 
derers, but  to  die  believing  that  they  were  worth 
the  saving — that  was  divine.  If  there  had  been 
only  one  man  in  the  mob  who  felt  the  power  of  that 
great  self-offering  it  would  have  made  Christianity 
possible.  Such  a  death  could  not  be  died  in  vain 
without  dethroning  God.  It  was  bound  to  do  what 
it  has  proved  itself  able  to  do ;  it  has  called  forth  a 
response  in  human  nature  which  is  showing  itself 
stronger  as  ages  pass.  Not  a  single  word  that  you 
or  I  have  ever  said  or  sung  about  the  death  of  Jesus 
exaggerates  in  the  least  the  moral  significance  of 
that  great  event,  even  though  neither  He  nor  His 
murderers  knew  what  it  would  do  for  mankind. 
Jesus  never  thought  of  dying  to  screen  His  foes 
from  punishment.  He  was  not  thinking  of  their 
punishment  at  all.  The  one  great  purpose  in  His 
mind  and  heart  was  that  of  leading  men  to  see  what 


igo      CHRIST   DYING    FOR    SINNERS 

life  might  be  if  lived  in  the  fellowship  of  the  love  of 
God.  The  price  He  had  to  pay  was  terrible,  but 
the  result  was  worth  it.  It  was  His  death  that 
taught  the  lesson ;  if  He  had  chosen  any  other  way 
than  the  way  that  finally  led  Him  to  Calvary,  if  He 
had  sought  to  be  a  Caesar  or  a  Napoleon,  the  world 
would  still  be  sighing  for  a  Saviour. 

This  is  the  greatest  truth  of  all,  the  truth  which 
men  have  dimly  felt  to  be  most  precious  in  the 
gospel  of  Jesus.  To  die  for  sinners  !  How  few  can 
do  it  I  We  all  draw  the  line  somewhere.  There 
comes  a  point  beyond  which  you  will  not  lay  the 
life  down.  You  can  die  for  husband,  brother, 
friend.  Perhaps  you  can  even  die  for  the  prodigal 
if  he  does  not  tax  your  patience  too  often.  But  who 
will  die — that  is  who  will  suffer  the  last  extremity, 
whatever  it  may  be — for  the  ungrateful  and  the  un- 
repentant ?  Many  a  mother  has  died  for  her  boy — 
died  to  all  that  life  holds  dear — and  seen  no  result 
of  the  agony.  Like  Jesus,  her  Calvary  has  ended 
in  a  broken  heart.  But  then,  he  was  her  boy,  bone 
of  her  bone  and  flesh  of  her  flesh.  How  many 
people  are  there  in  all  the  w^orld  who  could  live  as 
Jesus  lived,  and  die  as  Jesus  died,  for  humanity  as 
such,  humanity  foul,  degraded,  and  brutal ;  human- 
ity scornful  in  its  triumphant  evil  ?  That  is  a  test 
of  divine  love  which  has  not  yet  been  equalled. 
Moreover,  it  takes  heaven  into  the  nethermost  pit 
of  hell.  It  tells  me  something  of  which  I  never 
wish  to  lose  sight  again.  It  tells  me  that  I  can 
never  rise  to  highest  heaven  while  there  is  a  single 
burden  in  the  universe  that  I  am  unwilling  to  share. 
It  tells  me  that  no  sinner  can  suffer  alone,  and  that 


CHRIST   DYING    FOR    SINNERS      191 

no  saviour  can  stand  aloof  from  what  the  sinner 
endures.  The  highest  reach  of  saviourhood  is  that 
which  regards  the  sinner's  sentence  as  its  very  own 
and  seelis  to  take  the  sinner's  place.  Is  there  such 
saviourhood  ?  Yes,  there  is,  and  until  you  know  it 
you  do  not  know  that  which  is  deepest  both  in  man 
and  God. 

A  member  of  this  Thursday  congregation  recently 
sent  me  a  simple  little  story  of  a  poor,  ignorant 
woman  in  whom  this  truth  shone  grandly  forth.  I 
believe  the  account  was  supposed  to  be  authentic; 
but,  whether  or  no,  it  can  be  paralleled  a  thousand 
times  in  God's  world  to-day.  This  poor  creature 
had  been  ill-used  by  her  husband,  a  worthless 
wretch.  She  had  had  to  work  hard  for  a  precarious 
livelihood  because  he  refused  to  work  at  all.  Life 
was  so  hard  and  dark  for  her  that  she  might  have 
been  excused  for  hating  and  scorning  the  man  who 
had  made  it  so.  This  was  Calvary  over  again,  you 
see;  and  this  child  of  God  was  being  crucified.  The 
day  came  when  the  husband  was  sentenced  to  penai 
servitude  for  a  crime  against  society.  One  day  the 
person  who  tells  the  story  met  this  woman  helping 
a  broken-down  man  along  the  street  towards  her 
home.  It  was  the  released  convict,  and  he  looked 
the  brute  he  was.  Her  explanation  of  her  action 
was,  "  You  see,  sir,  Jim  has  no  one  but  me  now  I" 
Exactly.  This  man  was  reaping  what  he  had  sown, 
and  she  was  voluntarily  enduring  it  along  with  him. 
His  sin  had  made  her  poor,  and  she  accepted  the 
poverty ;  it  had  narrowed  and  darkened  her  life,  and 
she  was  willing  to  have  it  so  rather  than  desert  him. 
She  was  his  one  hope.     She  was  bearing  some  of 


192    CHRIST    DYING    FOR    SINNERS 

the  worst  of  the  consequences  of  his  wrong-doing 
for  him.  If  ever  that  man  could  be  brought  back 
to  truth  and  right  it  would  be  her  suffering  love  that 
would  do  it.  It  was  all  unfair,  so  gloriously  unfair  ! 
Can  you  not  see  what  it  was?  This  was  Christ 
bearing  the  burden  of  sin.  This  is  the  way  in 
which  He  is  dying  for  sinners  to-day.  He  is  being 
slain  on  the  altar  of  human  hearts,  and  there  is  no 
other  way  in  which  the  world  is  being  saved  or  can 
be  saved. 

When  I  survey  the  wondrous  Cross 
On  which  the  Prince  of  Glory  died. 

My  richest  gain  I  count  but  loss, 
And  pour  contempt  on  all  my  pride. 

Were  the  whole  realm  of  nature  mine. 
That  were  an  offering  far  too  small ; 

Love  so  amazing,  so  divine, 
Demands  my  life,  my  soul,  my  all ! 


XIII 

THE   TWO   NATURES 

"  For  I  delight  in  the  law  of  God  after  the  inward 

man  :  but  I  see  another  law  in  my  7nembers  warring 
against  the  law  of  my  mind^  a?td  bringing  me  into 
captivity  to  the  law  of  sin  which  is  in  my  members.'' — 
Rom.  vii.  22-23. 

Whether  the  experience  declared  in  these  words 
and  their  immediate  context  be  that  of  the  great 
apostle  whose  name  it  Hears  is  of  comparatively- 
small  importance;  the  impressive  thing  about  it  is 
its  intense  personal  character.  It  has  frequently- 
been  pointed  out  that  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  is 
more  theological  and  less  human  than  the  other 
writings  ascribed  to  St.  Paul.  This  is  quite  true, 
but  the  criticism  certainly  does  not  apply  to  the 
passage  which  forms  our  text ;  that  is  human 
enough.  Here  is  a  living  man  telling  us  of  his 
own  inner  life  with  its  unceasing  struggle  between 
good  and  evil.  In  using  this  language  he  speaks 
for  every  one  of  us,  for  probably  there  is  not  a 
single  soul  among  us  who  does  not  know  at  first 
hand  something  of  the  experience  which  is  here  so 
feelingly  described.  It  is  but  seldom  that  men  talk 
of  these  things,  but  their  reticence  does  not  mean 
that  they  think  lightly  of  them.  The  best  of  men 
13  193 


194  THE    TWO   NATURES 

must  feel  at  times  as  though  there  were  two  natures 
within  them  struggling  for  the  mastery  against 
each  other,  and  they  never  can  be  quite  sure  that 
the  higher  will  prove  itself  permanently  stronger 
than  the  lower.  This  presence  of  the  two  natures 
within  every  soul  is  one  of  the  perplexing  mysteries 
of  our  mundane  existence.  Theology  or  no  the- 
ology, religion  or  no  religion,  the  fact  has  to  be 
faced.  We  cannot  pretend  to  ignore  it.  The  angel 
and  the  devil,  the  God  and  the  beast,  are  ever  pitted 
against  each  other  within  the  human  breast.  I  will 
make  bold  to  say  that  there  is  not  a  single  man 
before  me  at  this  moment,  Christian  or  agnostic, 
Mohammedan  or  Jew,  who  does  not  know  what  I 
mean.  We  all  know  it;  we  have  to  know  it;  and 
there  are  times  when  the  knowledge  is  positive 
pain.  Permit  me  to  examine  the  problem  at  close 
quarters  for  a  few  moments  before  passing  on  to 
suggest  what  I  believe  to  be  the  most  helpful  way 
of  meeting  it.  A  full  and  complete  solution  of  it 
we  shall  never  find  on  this  side  of  the  grave;  but 
we  are  not  without  light  upon  it,  and  to  a  large 
extent  the  solution  lies  in  our  own  hands. 

Note,  then,  to  begin  with,  the  intense  realism  of 
the  way  in  which  this  man  describes  the  antagonism 
between  his  higher  and  his  lower  self.  No  matter 
how  earnestly  he  may  desire  to  do  the  high  and 
noble  thing,  he  finds  himself  hampered  and  hin- 
dered by  something  within  himself  which  drags 
him  down  and  makes  him  the  victim  of  that  which 
he  despises  and  abhors.  This  latter  tendency  he 
calls  the  ''  law  of  sin  "  or  ''the  flesh."  He  seems 
to  be  thinking  more  particularly  of  the  propensities 


THE    TWO   NATURES  195 

towards  sensual  indulgence,  but  the  experience 
holds  good  of  forms  of  evil  which  are  not  the  direct 
result  of  animal  cravings.  The  presence  of  these 
propensities  is  a  humiliation  to  a  high-minded  man, 
but  he  cannot  deceive  himself  as  to  what  they  are. 
He  feels  that,  much  as  he  would  like  to  do  the  best 
and  highest,  he  is  always  conscious  of  the  presence 
and  power  of  that  which  is  base  and  foul.  He  can- 
not blame  the  outside  world,  and  does  not  try  to 
do  so;  the  evil  is  innate,  how^ever  it  came  there.  It 
is  himself  and  yet  not  himself.  He  earnestly  longs 
to  get  free  from  it,  and  has  succeeded  in  convincing 
himself  that  it  is  somehow  bound  up  with  life  in 
the  body.  He  regards  the  pure  spirit,  the  divine 
essence,  in  every  man  as  being  weighted  and  tar- 
nished by  being  imprisoned  in  the  flesh.  Hence 
his  cry,  *'  O  wretched  man  that  I  am  !  who  shall 
deliver  me  from  this  body  of  death?"  In  this  kind 
of  language  we  have  undoubtedly  a  suggestion  of 
the  doctrine,  so  extensively  preached  at  the  time 
my  text  was  written,  that  the  flesh  is  the  seat  of  all 
evil,  and  that  to  free  the  soul  from  sin  all  that  has 
to  be  done  is  to  free  it  from  the  body.  I  do  not 
mean  that  the  writer  really  believes  this  without 
qualification,  but  it  is  plain  enough  that  he  is  in- 
fluenced by  it.  Nor  is  it  wonderful  that  it  should 
be  so.  When  one  considers  the  amount  of  wicked- 
ness which  seems  to  spring  from  the  desires  of  the 
flesh  overpowering  the  will,  it  is  quite  a  natural 
thing  to  believe  that  moral  evil  has  its  seat  in  the 
body  rather  than  the  soul.  I  cannot  stay  to  labour 
this  point;  I  can  only  remark  that  its  importance 
in  contemporary  thought  has  influenced  to  some 


196  THE    TWO   NATURES 

extent  the  language  of  our  text.  Evidently  the 
writer  believes  with  all  his  heart  that  what  is 
wanted,  in  order  to  bring  his  whole  being  into  har- 
mony with  the  law  of  God,  is  that  he  should  be 
delivered  from  the  burden  of  the  flesh.  And  by  this 
he  does  not  mean  dying  and  going  to  heaven ;  he 
means,  as  you  can  see  from  the  very  next  chapter, 
that  the  mortal  body  is  somehow  to  become  a  spirit- 
ual body  in  which  there  shall  no  longer  be  any  dis- 
cord between  duty  and  desire.  ''  But  if  the  Spirit 
of  Him  that  raised  up  Jesus  from  the  dead  dwell  in 
you.  He  that  raised  up  Christ  from  the  dead  shall 
also  quicken  your  mortal  bodies  by  His  Spirit  that 
dwelleth  in  you."  This  passage  means  exactly 
what  it  says,  and  represents  a  mode  of  thought 
which  has  entirely  passed  away.  It  is  an  emphatic 
statement  of  the  writer's  expectation  that  a  day 
would  come  when,  at  the  quickening  touch  of  the 
Spirit  of  God,  the  corruptible  physical  body  would 
become  a  glorious  spiritual  body  which  would  never 
again  be  subject  to  death  or  decay,  and  which 
would  be  a  fitting  outward  expression  of  the  angel- 
soul  within.  I  repeat  that  we  do  not  think  that 
now.  Nevertheless,  the  moral  problem  behind  that 
expectation  is  ours  still.  Like  Paul  and  his  con- 
temporaries, we  want  to  know  how  to  be  delivered 
from  this  body  of  death,  this  mass  of  evil  tendency 
within  our  nature  which  so  often  seems  to  set  the 
will  at  nought. 

How  terribly  real  this  problem  is  I  Here,  let  us 
suppose,  is  a  man  in  a  high  position,  before  the 
public  eye.  He  is  greatly  respected  and  beloved, 
a  man  of  talent  and  usefulness,  as  well  as  of  much 


THE   TWO    NATURES  197 

force  of  character.  He  may  be  greatly  looked  up 
to  in  his  particular  circle  and  regarded  as  a  model 
of  probity.  Suddenly,  one  day  that  man's  reputa- 
tion collapses  like  a  house  of  cards.  Something 
comes  out  about  him  which  has  been  kept  secret 
for  a  long  time,  but  the  publication  of  which  im- 
mediately damns  him  with  society.  Perhaps  he  is 
unable  to  face  the  storm,  and  therefore  chooses 
death  or  flies  the  country,  perhaps  he  is  not  so  for- 
tunate as  to  find  this  mode  of  escape  possible — his 
offence  may  have  been  one  of  which  the  law  takes 
cognisance,  and  the  first  intimation  which  his 
friends  receive  of  his  fall  is  the  news  that  he  is  in 
a  prison  cell.  Picture  the  consternation  among 
those  who  have  loved  and  trusted  him.  Imagine 
the  bewilderment  and  even  agony  of  mind  with 
which  those  who  have  received  good  from  this 
man's  inspiration  and  example  now  begin  to  won- 
der whether  there  is  truth  and  honour  to  be  found 
anywhere  on  earth.  There  may  be  some  coarse 
natures  who  will  be  ready  with  their  gibes  and 
jeers  and  their  brutal  rejoicing  over  a  fallen  idol, 
but  I  think  these  are  never  numerous  in  proportion 
to  the  community  as  a  whole ;  my  own  observation 
rather  goes  to  prove  that  as  a  rule  sorrow  and  pity 
predominate  in  the  presence  of  such  a  moral 
tragedy.  Perhaps  there  is  a  reason  for  this.  It 
may  arise  from  the  fact  that  every  man  knows  he 
carries  within  himself  a  very  demon  of  hell  that  in 
an  unguarded  moment  might  fling  him  beside  the 
ruined  and  the  lost.  *'  Let  him  that  thinketh  he 
standeth  take  heed  lest  he  fall."  The  world's  ver- 
dict is  relentless,  but  not  wholly  unfeeling.     The 


198  THE    TWO   NATURES 

flaming  sword  of  human  judgment  bars  the  way- 
back  to  the  Eden  from  which  the  erring  soul  has 
been  driven,  but  the  angel  who  holds  it  has  eyes 
of  sadness.  In  Oscar  Wilde's  harrowing  book, 
De  ProfundiSy  there  is  one  touching  paragraph  in 
which  the  author  describes  his  own  anguish  in 
the  day  of  exposure,  and  the  way  in  which  one 
man  behaved  to  him  in  that  season  of  trial.  He 
says :  — 

**  Where  there  is  sorrow  there  is  holy  ground.  .  .  . 
When  I  w^as  brought  down  from  my  prison  to  the 
Court  of  Bankruptcy  between  two  policemen,  a 
friend  waited  in  the  long,  dreary  corridor,  that, 
before  the  whole  crowd,  whom  an  action  so  sweet 
and  simple  hushed  into  silence,  he  might  gravely 
raise  his  hat  to  me,  as,  handcuffed  with  bowed 
head,  I  passed  him  by.  Men  have  gone  to  heaven 
for  smaller  things  than  that.  It  was  in  this  spirit, 
and  with  this  mode  of  love,  that  the  saints  knelt  down 
to  wash  the  feet  of  the  poor,  or  stooped  to  kiss  the 
leper  on  the  cheek.  I  have  never  said  one  single 
word  to  him  about  what  he  did.  I  do  not  know 
to  the  present  moment  whether  he  is  aware  that  I 
was  even  conscious  of  his  action.  It  is  not  a  thing 
for  which  one  can  render  formal  thanks  in  formal 
words.  I  store  it  in  the  treasure-house  of  my  heart. 
I  keep  it  there  as  a  secret  debt  that  I  am  glad  to 
think  I  can  never  possibly  repay." 

I  have  no  doubt  that  this  incident  actually  took 
place,  for  I  think  I  know  what  prompted  it.  The 
man  who  took  off  his  hat  to  the  poor,  crushed, 
broken-hearted  prisoner  was  gifted  with  moral  in- 
sight.    He  knew  that  the  sufferer  was  not  wholly 


THE    TWO    NATURES  199 

corrupt,  so  he  bared  his  head  to  the  diviner  self 
that  had  never  fallen.  He  knew  that  what  had  been 
worthy  of  respect  in  him  before  was  no  sham,  but 
a  reality,  and  was  worthy  of  respect  still.  He 
knew,  too,  that  no  man  is  so  superior  to  temptation 
that  he  can  venture  to  despise  his  fallen  brother; 
the  difference  in  merit  between  the  victor  and  the 
vanquished  in  such  a  strife  is,  perhaps,  not  so  very 
great.  In  one  man,  passion  may  become  a  surging 
torrent,  a  volcanic  eruption  blasting  and  destroy- 
ing all  in  a  moment  the  whole  moral  beauty  and 
fertility  of  a  lifetime;  in  another,  it  may  be  a 
sinister  presence  against  which  God's  warrior  has 
continually  to  be  on  guard.  And  whether  the  issue 
is  victory  or  defeat,  no  man  who  has  ever  fought 
the  battle  with  Apollyon  in  the  Valley  of  Humilia- 
tion should  dare  to  despise  the  weaker  soul  who 
has  been  worsted  m  the  same  conflict.  How 
fatally  easy  it  is  to  trifle  with  the  highest  and 
deceive  one's  self  as  to  what  is  actually  taking 
place  !  How  one  false  step  leads  to  another  !  How 
closely  the  best  in  human  nature  is  allied  to  the 
worst !  How,  almost  insensibly,  one  can  become 
entangled  with  evil  in  such  a  way  that  one's  very 
moral  obligations  seem  to  render  it  more  difficult  to 
escape  the  sin  I  You  do  a  wrong,  and  forthwith 
you  find  that  to  put  it  right  you  must  inflict  some 
anguish  upon  the  innocent.  What  a  hell  for  a 
sensitive  soul  is  involved  in  the  fact  that  every 
departure  from  rectitude  creates  a  fresh  set  of  rela- 
tions which  impose  a  further  barrier  in  the  way  of 
getting  back  to  purity  and  simplicity  of  life  !  As 
Lancelot  confessed  to  King  Arthur : 


200  THE    TWO   NATURES 

In  me  lived  a  sin 
So  strange,  of  such  a  kind,  that  all  of  pure, 
Noble,  and  knightly  in  me  twined  and  clung 
Round  that  one  sin,  until  the  wholesome  flower 
And  poisonous  grew  together,  each  as  each, 
Not  to  be  pluck'd  asunder. 

We  are  all  familiar,  too,  with  that  intractable 
type  of  character  commonly  called  the  ne'er-do-well. 
One  member  of  a  family  is  utterly  different  from 
all  the  rest  in  that  from  his  childhood  up  he  has 
seemed  to  lack  ordinary  moral  perception.  He 
may  be  lovable  in  disposition,  kind  and  gentle  in 
ordinary  circumstances,  but  nothing  that  can  be 
said  or  done  will  avail  to  save  him  from  making  a 
wreck  of  his  career.  He  has  little  or  no  strength  of 
will,  unless  a  fatal  obstinacy  in  the  wrong  direction 
can  be  regarded  as  strength  of  will.  He  breaks  his 
promises  without  compunction.  Again  and  again 
his  friends  provide  him  with  a  fresh  start,  only  to 
find  that  they  have  been  deceived  and  all  their 
efforts  rendered  vain  by  the  inherent  viciousness  of 
the  abnormal  nature  with  which  they  have  to  deal. 
There  are  special  times,  perhaps,  when  the  poor 
creature  loathes  himself  and  sees  a  little  of  the 
sorrow  and  anguish  he  is  causing,  but  these  do 
not  last  long,  and  no  one  knows  better  than  himself 
the  reason  why.  And  yet,  surely,  such  cases  are 
unexplainable  by  any  ordinary  theory  of  religion 
or  morals.  Why  should  a  child  be  foredoomed 
from  the  cradle,  as  it  were,  to  be  a  constant  source 
of  misery  to  himself  and  others  and  to  baffle  the 
very  best  that  human  love  can  do  ?  We  have  no 
clearer  answer  to-day  than  was  present  to  the  mind 
of  the  writer  of  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  ages  ago. 


THE   TWO   NATURES  201 

I  remember  in  my  student  days  being  asked  to  go 
and  plead  with  a  young  man  who  had  contracted 
the  gambhng  habit,  and,  as  is  usually  the  case, 
had  fallen  a  victim  to  other  vices  through  the  evil 
associations  thus  engendered.  This  man  was  well 
connected;  heir  to  a  flourishing  business;  the  only 
son  of  parents  who  idolised  him.  He  was  happily 
married  and  had  two  beautiful  children.  One  would 
have  thought  that  there  was  not  the  slightest  like- 
lihood of  such  a  man  being  tempted  to  give  way 
to  the  practices  which  I  was  assured  were  ruining 
him.  It  was  pitiful  to  watch  the  grief  of  those  who 
loved  him — and  I  soon  found  out  that  what  they 
told  me  of  his  good  qualities  was  the  simple  truth. 
But  all  one  could  say  was  useless.  How  well  I 
remember  the  self-despair  with  which  the  poor 
fellow  flung  out  his  hands  in  a  helpless  gesture, 
saying  as  he  did  so  :  "  It  is  no  good  your  talking 
to  me.  I  knew  what  you  would  say  before  you 
came ;  I  could  say  it  all  myself.  But  I  should  only 
lie  to  you  if  I  were  to  tell  you  that  I  could  mend  my 
ways,  for  I  know  I  can't.  There  is  something  in 
my  nature  that  is  driving  me  straight  to  hell — in- 
deed, I  am  in  hell  now.  I  do  not  enjoy  the  life  I 
am  leading.  I  do  not  know  why  I  lead  it.  I  am 
just  carried  on  in  spite  of  myself,  and  the  sooner 
the  end  comes  the  better."  I  am  afraid  the  end  did 
come  in  the  w-ay  anticipated.  I  never  heard  that 
there  was  any  change  for  the  better;  probably  this 
poor  wretch  went  over  the  precipice  of  absolute  ruin 
at  last.  It  is  easy  to  pass  a  hasty  condemnation 
upon  the  unmanliness  and  contemptible  weakness 
of  such  a  man  as  this.     We  may  detect  signs  of 


202  THE    TWO    NATURES 

defective  home  training  in  youth ;  may  believe  that 
a  too  indulgent  mother  may  not  have  been  wholly 
free  from  blame  in  sowing  the  seeds  of  habits  which 
led  to  the  inevitable  catastrophe.  But  that  does 
not  explain  everything;  in  fact,  it  explains  very 
little.  Any  one  whose  work  for  God  lies  among 
the  degraded  and  criminal  classes  will  tell  you  that 
nothing  is  more  utterly  perplexing,  or  more  bitterly 
discouraging,  than  to  have  to  deal  with  inherent 
weakness  of  will  and  an  innate  tendency  towards 
some  particular  form  or  forms  of  vice.  They 
represent  the  problem  of  my  text  carried  to  the 
extreme.  They  represent,  too,  what  we  all  know 
in  some  measure  about  ourselves.  We  are  all  weak 
of  will  somewhere ;  somewhere  within  us  there  lurks 
the  enemy  who  might  work  our  overthrow  if  we 
had  nothing  wherewith  to  resist  him.  We  can 
neither  expel  nor  destroy  him  completely.  All  our 
life  through,  and  in  all  our  activities,  we  have  to 
remain  conscious  of  this  inner  antagonism  between 
the  higher  and  the  lower. 

Now  what  is  this  lower?  What  is  this  prin- 
ciple of  evil  of  whose  presence  we  are  all  so  im- 
mediately aware,  and  which  in  our  weaker  brethren 
is  able  to  work  such  havoc  and  shame  in  spite 
of  themselves?  We  can  no  longer  pretend  to 
account  for  it  by  saying  that  it  is  the  result 
of  a  primeval  fall  of  the  race  from  purity,  and  yet 
it  does  not  seem  sufficient  to  say  that  it  is  our 
natural  selfishness  coming  out.  I  dare  say  you 
all  know  that  in  my  view  an  act  of  sin  is  an  act  of 
selfishness  pure  and  simple.  But  the  thing  behind 
the  sin  is  not  necessarily  selfishness  any  more  than 


THE   TWO    NATURES  203 

cancer  or  madness  is  selfishness.  What  then  is  this 
dreadful  thing  that  urges  men  downward?  What 
does  it  spring  from  ?  Is  it  true,  as  the  apostle 
says,  that  if  we  could  get  rid  of  the  mass  of  tend- 
ency it  represents  we  should  be  free  to  obey  the 
law  of  God  without  let  or  hindrance  ?  Well,  I 
will  tell  you  what  I  think  it  is.  I  believe  it  is  the 
same  divine  force  which,  rightly  directed,  produces 
the  greatest  and  worthiest  human  achievements. 
There  is  no  tendency  of  human  nature  which  is 
radically  and  essentially  bad;  as  a  tendency  it  is 
neither  good  nor  bad,  it  is  only  an  urge.  Whether 
it  shall  be  good  or  bad  depends  upon  the  direction 
we  give  to  it.  The  very  same  electric  current  which 
launches  a  thunderbolt  powerful  enough  to  blast  a 
landscape  and  destroy  life  and  beauty  may  be 
harnessed  to  the  service  of  man,  drive  hiis  engines, 
grind  his  corn,  and  light  his  dwellings.  The  very 
same  mountain  torrent  which  uncontrolled  will 
sweep  whole  villages  to  destruction  and  convert  a 
smiling  countryside  into  an  inland  sea  may  be  used 
as  the  means  of  bringing  life  instead  of  death  to  the 
land  upon  which  it  descends.  So  it  is  with  human 
nature.  Look  beneath  every  evil  deed  that  was 
ever  committed.  Ask  why  it  was  what  it  was,  and 
you  will  find  that  the  force  behind  it  might  have 
been  a  means  of  blessing  to  the  world  instead  of  a 
curse  to  those  upon  whom  it  fell.  There  is  in  every 
man  a  Dr.  Jekyll  and  a  Mr.  Hyde,  and  yet  the 
two  are  one;  the  very  same  life  force  produces  both. 
As  to  which  shall  appear  all  depends  upon  the 
objection  given  to  that  force.  The  great  criminal 
is  a  great  statesman  or  a  great  inventor  gone  to 


204  THE    TWO   NATURES 

waste.  The  gambler  has  the  explorer's  instinct, 
and  with  it  all  the  making  of  a  hero.  Even  the 
sensualist  is  not  the  victim  of  a  passion  in  which  he 
shares  with  the  brutes  instead  of  the  gods — far 
from  it.  Without  that  passion  no  man  could  lift 
his  gaze  above  the  clod;  it  is  present  in  every 
activity  in  which  the  highest  human  energies  are 
engaged.  No  poet,  no  artist,  has  ever  yet  been 
without  it  or  ever  could  be.  No  saint,  in  the  truest 
sense  of  the  word,  but  has  been  the  product  of  it. 
The  theologian  may  lack  it,  but  the  preacher  never 
can ;  it  is  that  mysterious,  subtle,  all-pervading 
essence  of  reality  which  not  only  draws  man  and 
woman  together  but  binds  all  humanity  into  an 
indissoluble  whole.  It  is  that  in  you  and  me  which 
bids  us  reach  out  to  one  another  and  join  hands  in 
the  march  towards  our  heavenly  goal.  It  is  a 
known  fact,  noted  and  commented  upon  by  human- 
ists and  psychologists  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion, that  some  of  the  finest  examples  of  religious 
and  artistic  genius  have  been  peculiarly  prone  to 
sins  of  the  flesh.  It  has  been  surmised  that  this 
may  have  been  the  case  with  Paul  himself,  and 
that  it  is  this  fact  which  accounts  for  the  language 
of  this  seventh  of  Romans.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the 
general  fact  is  indisputable,  and  it  is  not  impos- 
sible to  see  why.  It  is  because  those  who  have 
been  the  master  spirits  of  the  race  on  its  highest 
planes  of  achievement  have  been  those  in  which 
this  unifying  force  has  had  the  greatest  sway. 
Once  lower  its  objective,  and  it  will  become  a 
death-dealer  instead  of  a  life-giver,  like  a  live  elec- 
tric wire  which  falls  from  the  sky  into  the  muddy 


THE    TWO    NATURES  205 

street  and  kills  the  passers  by.  It  is  always  so. 
Give  a  man  self-expression  along  the  highest  plane 
of  service,  and  he  will  cease  to  desire  the  lower; 
bind  him  to  the  lower,  and  you  turn  a  god  into  a 
devil,  and  yet  the  force  in  either  case  is  precisely 
the  same.  The  demoniac  energy  of  Saul  the  perse- 
cutor was  afterwards  seen  in  the  holy  zeal  of  Paul 
the  apostle.  It  had  found  a  higher  objective,  and 
with  it  a  new  spirit,  that  was  all. 

You  have  all  heard  of  the  French  regiment,  com- 
posed of  convicts,  which  was  sent  to  fight  in 
Algeria.  More  uncompromising  material  where- 
with to  do  great  things  could  scarcely  be  imagined, 
and  yet  this  band  of  criminals  rose  to  the  occasion 
and  outshone  most  of  the  regular  soldiery  on  the 
battlefield.  How  was  it  done  ?  It  was  done  by 
the  faith  of  the  colonel  in  command.  He  knew 
that  men  whose  fearless  energy  had  been  exercised 
in  preying  upon  their  country  might  find  an  outlet 
for  the  same  qualities  in  the  service  of  that  country, 
if  only  a  beginning  could  be  made.  He  made  it 
by  believing  in  them;  treated  them  with  respect; 
appealed  to  their  higher  manhood ;  gave  them  their 
flag — called  it  theirs,  and  bade  them  carry  it  to 
victory.  One  day  an  attack  had  to  be  made  on  an 
all  but  impregnable  Moorish  redoubt.  First  one 
regiment  and  then  another  of  the  finest  soldiers  in 
the  French  army  was  rolled  back  from  that  fatal 
eminence  with  heavy  loss.  At  last  came  the  turn 
of  the  scallywags.  Their  leader  pointed  first  to 
the  battered  remnants  of  the  troops  that  had  already 
tried  and  failed,  then  to  the  grim  height  where 
their  comrades  lay,   and  said   in  a  voice  that  all 


2o6  THE    TWO   NATURES 

could  hear:  ''Soldiers  I  Your  flag  must  fly  up 
yonder."  Not  another  word  was  needed.  Away 
marched  this  company  of  burglars,  forgers,  hooli- 
gans, and  pickpockets.  Half-way  up  the  hill  their 
brave  colonel  fell  dead.  If  there  had  been  any 
doubt  as  to  their  behaviour  before,  there  was  none 
now.  With  cries  of  grief  and  anger  they  swept 
over  the  summit  like  a  torrent  of  flame  and  planted 
their  colours  on  the  topmost  peak  of  the  enemy's 
fortress.  Was  there  anything  so  very  wonderful 
in  this?  Not  at  all.  It  was  but  the  effect  of  the 
new  direction  given  to  an  old  force  under  the 
impulse  of  a  higher  spirit.  I  am  told  that  a 
similar  experiment  is  being  made  in  the  United 
States  with  men  who  have  usually  been  considered 
a  danger  to  society  and  to  be  guarded  like  wild 
beasts.  The  man  who  has  found  the  more  excel- 
lent way  has  fnade  no  effort  to  get  any  penal  sen- 
tence remitted.  He  has  simply  taken  those  who 
have  suffered  for  their  sin,  and  given  them  a  chance 
to  express  the  very  same  characteristics  which  led 
to  their  undoing  in  some  new  and  nobler  way. 
"There  is  nothing  unclean  of  itself";  whether  it 
shall  be  clean  or  unclean  is  a  question  of  the  out- 
come. 

There  is,  of  course,  a  profound  truth  in  the 
apostle's  reasoning  that  the  seat  of  evil  is  in  the 
flesh,  and  it  is  this  :  the  body  is  at  once  the  ex- 
pression and  the  limitation  of  the  soul.  It  is  the 
banks  and  bed  of  the  river,  the  channel  through 
which  flows  the  current  of  the  divine  life.  Here 
and  there  you  may  find  that  the  banks  have  given 
way  and  the  stream  becomes  a  swamp.     This  is 


THE    TWO    NATURES  207 

what  the  world  calls  weakness  of  will  or  mortal 
atrophy.  In  some  other  case  you  will  observe  that 
the  river  has  run  away  and  lost  itself  in  the  sand 
instead  of  mingling  its  waters  with  the  ocean. 
This  IS  what  we  mean  when  we  say  that  youthful 
promise  has  come  to  nothing  for  lack  of  the  quali- 
ties which  command  success.  And  elsewhere  we 
are  compelled  to  watch  with  pain  the  flood  of 
divine  power  flinging  itself  into  some  awful  abyss 
or  turning  aside  from  the  course  in  which  it  might 
have  been  the  artery  of  a  nation's  commerce.  In 
every  case  it  is  not  the  water  that  is  to  blame,  but 
the  bed  in  which  it  has  been  made  to  flow.  Would 
you  save  the  man  who  is  weak  of  will  and  whose 
life  has  become  a  stagnant,  ague-breeding  pool  ? 
You  must  drain  the  swamp.  Let  the  waters  of 
blessing  flow  somewhere.  Find  out  in  what  direc- 
tion the  divine  urge  would  take  him  if  the  way 
were  open;  there  is  not  a  human  being  on  earth 
who  could  not  be  made  to  feel  the  joy  of  self- 
expression  in  something  that  is  for  the  good  of  all 
mankind.  Once  set  the  waters  flowing  and  they 
will  cut  their  own  channel;  you  will  find  that  the 
feeble  soul  has  developed  a  will  at  last;  the  will 
is  only  the  soul  in  movement,  the  whole  man  in 
action.  Take  him  whose  life  has  run  to  nothing 
or  plunged  with  hellish  force  over  the  precipice  of 
moral  ruin.  That  river  needs  a  new  bed.  Every 
evil  deed  is  helping  to  cut  the  present  channel  a 
little  deeper;  better  open  a  new  one  than  try  to 
stem  the  flood  that  pours  along  the  old.  Some- 
times this  will  be  a  laborious  process ;  sometimes  it 
can  be  done  at  a  stroke.     But,  whether  the  work  is 


2oS  THE    TWO    NATURES 

swift  or  slow,  believe  that  it  can  be  done,  and  spare 
no  effort  to  do  it.  To  have  faith  in  God  is  to  have 
faith  in  man,  the  deeper  man  behind  the  deed 
whatever  it  may  be.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  the 
law  of  sin  is  in  the  members,  not  in  the  man.  As 
Juliana  of  Norwich  has  it ;  "  There  is  in  every  man 
a  godly  will  that  hath  never  consented  to  sin  nor 
ever  shall."  Appeal  to  that  and  the  whole  nature 
will  respond. 

In  conclusion,  suffer  me  to  speak  one  word  of 
help  and  encouragement,  if  I  can,  to  those  who 
have  come  in  here  only  too  sadly  conscious  of  the 
antinomy  described  in  my  text.  There  may  be 
something  in  your  life  which  is  to  you  a  constant 
source  of  humiliation  and  dread — some  evil  habit, 
some  secret  vice,  some  temptation  you  cannot 
always  resist,  and  which  if  it  gains  the  mastery  will 
compass  your  utter  ruin,  body  and  soul.  I  can 
well  understand  that  in  such  a  conflict  you  must  be 
unable  at  times  to  say  which  is  you — the  devil  with 
his  fingers  on  your  throat  or  the  poor  gasping  soul 
that  writhes  in  his  cruel  embrace.  Well,  do  not 
question  about  it  any  more.  The  real  you  is  not 
the  fiend  of  hell,  but  the  child  of  God.  You  have 
got  to  believe  that  and  live  it.  Take  that  very 
propensity  you  loathe  so  much  and  make  it  beau- 
tiful. Baptise  it  into  Christ.  Look  where  its 
power  comes  from  and  link  that  power  to  the  stars. 
Turn  your  weakness  into  strength.  Let  there  be 
no  doubt  in  your  mind  as  to  what  God  wants  you 
to  do  and  to  be.  You  can  achieve  it  by  the  spirit 
of  Christ,  and  you  do  not  need  to  look  outside  to 
find  that.     That  spirit  indwells  you  now,  and  is 


THE    TWO    NATURES  209 

stronger  than  all  that  would  seek  your  hurt. 
''  There  is  therefore  now  no  condemnation  to  them 
which  are  in  Christ  Jesus,  who  walk  not  after  the 
flesh,  but  after  the  spirit.  For  the  law  of  the  spirit 
of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  hath  rhade  me  free  from  the 
law  of  sin  and  of  death." 


14 


XIV 

SPIRITUAL   STRENGTH 

"  Strejtgtkened  with  i7iight  by  His  Spirit  in  the  i7iner 
man"— Epkes.  iii.  i6. 

The  epistle  to  the  Ephesians  might  more  fitly  be 
called  the  epistle  from  the  Ephesians,  for  although 
it  bears  the  name  of  St.  Paul,  and  exhibits  many 
traces  of  his  influence,  its  affinities  are  rather  with 
the  Johannine  writings,  and  the  epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  than  with  Romans  and  Corinthians. 
Knowing  as  we  do  that  the  metropolitan  city  of 
Ephesus  was  the  great  centre  of  the  type  of  thought 
associated  with  the  name  of  the  apostle  John,  we 
can  see  some  reason  why  this  Christian  writing 
should  be  described  as  addressed  to  Ephesians.  If 
it  did  not  originate  in  Ephesus  it  came  from  the 
hand  of  one  who  had  received  his  Christian  training 
in  the  Ephesian  atmosphere. 

But  this  fact  has  some  interesting  consequences. 
For  one  thing  it  did  much  to  foster  and  encourage 
the  great  idea  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Although 
not  expressly  stated,  this  idea  permeates  and  colours 
all  that  the  writer  of  this  epistle  has  to  say.  It  has 
been  pointed  out  that  Roman  Catholic  Christianity 
has  drawn  more  support  from  the  language  of  the 
epistle  to  the  Ephesians  than  from  all  the  Pauline 


SPIRITUAL    STRENGTH  211 

writings  put  together.  How  is  this?  Well,  prin- 
cipally because  Pauline  Christianity  begins  with 
the  individual,  and  emphasises  continually  the  indi- 
vidual relationship  of  the  Christian  to  his  Lord ;  on 
the  other  hand,  this  Ephesian  writer,  while  greatly 
indebted  to  the  mysticism  of  St.  Paul,  makes  far 
more  of  the  thought  of  an  ideal  humanity  in  which 
every  individual  unit  shall  be  merged  and  fulfilled 
in  the  life  of  the  whole.  Of  course,  it  is  quite  clear 
that  this  conception  is  always  present  to  the  mind 
of  St.  Paul  too,  but  he  does  not  give  it  the  all- 
dominating  place  which  it  occupies  in  this  epistle. 
To  the  man  who  wrote  our  text  the  whole  objective 
of  the  Christian  revelation  was  the  production  of  a 
perfect  spiritual  society  rooted  and  grounded  in 
Christ;  in  fact,  he  sometimes  seems  to  lose  sight 
of  society  in  his  assertion  of  something  even  higher, 
namely,  the  mystic  unity  of  a  redeemed  human 
race. 

The  ideal  is  a  very  lofty  one,  and  it  is  here  set 
forth  in  a  style  appropriate  to  the  theme.  It  is  not 
the  glowing,  pointed,  personal  style  of  the  apostle 
Paul,  but  it  is  not  without  a  certain  force  and  magic 
of  its  own.  To  catch  the  spirit  of  it  w^e  ought  to 
realise  that  the  early  struggles  between  Jewish  and 
Gentile  Christianity  are  now  over.  You  know,  of 
course,  to  what  I  refer.  Read  the  epistle  to  the 
Galatians,  for  instance,  and  see  how  bravely  Paul 
fought  for  the  inclusion  of  Gentiles  within  the 
benefits  of  the  gospel  of  Christ  on  equal  terms  with 
converts  of  Jewish  birth.  We  may  wonder  now 
that  such  a  conflict  was  ever  necessary,  but  it  was. 
But  by  the  time  my  text  came  to  be  written  Paul's 


212  SPIRITUAL   STRENGTH 

battle  had  been  won ;  there  was  no  longer  any  dis- 
tinction between  Jew  and  Gentile  in  the  Christian 
Church.  Their  unity  had  been  cemented  with 
blood,  for  both  apparently  had  had  to  suffer  terrible 
persecution  at  the  hands  of  the  Roman  authorities. 
The  writer  of  Ephesians  refers  to  these  things  and 
urges  his  readers  to  rejoice  more  and  more  in  the 
idea  of  a  spiritual  unity  and  to  endeavour  to  realise 
it  by  every  means  in  their  power.  Listen  to  the 
following  sentences,  and  you  will  have  a  fairly 
accurate  idea  of  the  scope  and  purpose  of  the  whole 
writing — 

''  That  in  the  dispensation  of  the  fulness  of  times 
He  might  gather  together  in  one  all  things  in 
Christ,  both  which  are  in  heaven,  and  which  are 
on  earth;  even  in  Him  (i.  lo). 

"  Now,  therefore,  ye  are  no  more  strangers  and 
foreigners,  but  fellow-citizens  with  the  saints,  and 
of  the  household  of  God;  and  are  built  upon  the 
foundation  of  the  apostles  and  prophets,  Jesus 
Christ  Himself  being  the  chief  corner  stone;  in 
whom  all  the  building  fitly  framed  together  groweth 
unto  an  holy  temple  in  the  Lord  :  in  whom  ye  also 
are  builded  together  for  an  habitation  of  God 
through  the  Spirit  "  (ii.  19-22). 

It  is  quite  in  the  fitness  of  things  that  the  writer 
should  attribute  this  ideal  to  the  apostle  Paul,  for 
the  credit  of  having  made  it  a  reality  belongs  to 
him  more  than  to  any  other  man.  Try  to  imagine 
the  enormous  difference  which  must  have  been 
made  to  the  outlook  of  primitive  Christianity  by 
the  burning  words  of  the  great  apostle:  ''There 
is  neither  Jew   nor  Greek,   there  is   neither  bond 


SPIRITUAL   STRENGTH  213 

nor  free,  there  is  neither  male  nor  female,  for  ye 
are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus."  We  profess  to  take 
this  for  granted  now,  but  it  was  a  new  idea  then. 
The  writer  of  Ephesians  has  become  possessed  by 
it  and  is  full  of  enthusiasm  for  all  that  it  means. 
He  has  no  interest  in  a  perfected  individual  as  such  ; 
indeed,  he  does  not  believe  in  any  such  thing. 
Individual  salvation  would  to  him  be  meaningless 
apart  from  a  regenerated  humanity.  It  is  upon  this 
consummation  that  he  dwells  and  insists  from  first 
to  last.  I  have  purposely  drawn  your  attention  to 
this  governing  thought  in  order  that  you  may  the 
better  understand  the  bearing  of  our  text.  As  it 
stands  this  passage  might  be  regarded  as  a  counsel 
for  the  individual  only,  but  you  can  now  see  that  it 
cannot  be  anything  of  the  kind ;  whatever  value  it 
has  can  only  be  in  its  subordination  to  the  general 
purpose  of  the  whole  epistle.  If  we  keep  this  fact 
well  in  mind  we  shall  be  in  no  danger  of  misappro- 
priating the  meaning  of  this  exhortation.  The 
writer  represents  the  apostle  Paul  as  declaring  that 
his  prayer  for  his  converts  is  that  they  may  be 
strengthened  with  might  in  the  inner  man  by  the 
Spirit  of  God.  We  have  seen  the  end  he  has  in 
view,  but  what  is  this  inner  strengthening  by  which 
he  hopes  to  see  the  end  accomplished?  That  is 
what  I  want  you  to  help  me  to  find  out. 

You  cannot  fail  to  notice  that  the  sentiment  of 
this  text  closely  resembles  a  good  deal  that  we  are 
hearing  at  the  present  time  about  the  inner  resources 
of  the  individual  man.  You  are  all  more  or  less 
acquainted  with  what  is  generically  termed  the  new 
thought,    which    in    the    main    is   what    Professor 


214  SPIRITUAL   STRENGTH 

William  James,  of  Harvard,  would  call  the  gospel  of 
healthy-mindedness.  It  has  a  good  many  varieties, 
but  in  principle  it  is  much  the  same  everywhere. 
It  amounts  to  this  :  If  you  want  to  be  happy  and 
prosperous  you  must  call  upon  your  indwelling 
divine  strength.  You  must  realise  that  all  you  can 
possibly  want  or  desire  is  already  within  you,  and 
that  it  rests  with  you  to  bring  it  into  manifestation. 
Thus,  if  you  are  poor,  you  must  believe  that  all 
the  wealth  of  the  universe  is  within  you,  waiting  to 
be  drawn  upon ;  if  you  are  sick,  you  must  believe 
the  same  in  respect  to  health ;  if  circumstances  seem 
to  be  against  you,  you  must  understand  and  act 
upon  the  conviction  that  the  spiritual  nature  of  man 
is  subject  to  no  limitations,  and  can  neither  be 
hampered  nor  imprisoned  by  material  things.  We 
are  assured  that  if  we  will  only  live  consistently  in 
the  power  of  this  truth  it  will  banish  all  sadness, 
gloom,  depression,  and  sorrow  of  heart.  Nothing 
will  be  able  to  injure  us  or  cut  us  ofif  from  our 
divine  heritage.  All  the  evil  and  all  the  pain  of 
the  world  would  be  destroyed  at  a  stroke  if  only 
every  man  and  woman  in  it  could  be  persuaded  to 
live  upon  this  level  and  depend  entirely  upon  the 
power  of  the  indwelling  Spirit  of  all  good.  One 
fully  admits  the  force  and  the  practical  value  of  this 
principle,  notwithstanding  its  occasional  vulgar  and 
materialistic  applications.  It  is  a  re-emphasis  of 
something  which  characterised  the  magnificent 
optimism  of  the  first  Christians,  and  which  the 
modern  world  has  sadly  needed  to  hear  again.  Its 
truth  is  demonstrable,  too.  Once  get  a  man  to 
believe  in  his  power  to  achieve  a  certain  object,  and 


SPIRITUAL   STRENGTH  215 

he  has  gone  a  long  way  towards  doing  it.  There 
are  many  diseases  which  would  yield  to  this  kind 
of  treatment,  and  perhaps  the  list  can  be  indefinitely 
extended.  Greatest  of  all  the  benefits  of  this 
method  of  looking  at  life  is  the  buoyancy  of  spirit 
it  engenders.  What  an  enormous  boon  it  is  to  be 
able  to  get  rid  of  depression,  discouragement,  and 
fear  of  the  future  !  Why,  that  alone  is  something 
to  thank  God  for  and  rejoice.  Most  willingly, 
therefore,  do  I  admit  the  positive  moral  value  of 
this  modern  re-assertion  of  faith  in  the  indwelling 
good. 

But  there  is  a  point  at  which  the  practice  of  this 
principle  often  seems  to  fall  short  of  the  highest, 
and  to  become  essentially  different  from  Chris- 
tianity. If  some  of  its  exponents  are  right,  then 
Jesus  Himself  must  have  been  mistaken  when  He 
died  on  Calvary.  He  need  not  have  died ;  all  He 
had  to  do  was  to  realise  the  power  of  the  indwelling 
good  as  sufficient  to  baffle  all  His  foes  and  render 
all  pain  unnecessary.  Why  should  He  have  shed 
one  drop  of  blood  ?  Why  faint  beneath  the  cross  ? 
Why  utter  that  cry  of  dereliction  :  "  My  God,  My 
God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  Me?"  Somehow  we 
feel  that,  dark  and  terrible  as  was  our  Saviour's 
experience  of  the  cross,  it  was  grander  and  higher 
than  the  modern  insistence  upon  an  indwelling 
strength  which  secures  immunity  from  it.  Ponder 
this  for  a  moment.  I  advance  no  theory  to  account 
for  the  fact;  I  simply  point  out  that  the  power  of 
the  Gospel  of  Christ  over  the  hearts  and  minds  of 
men  is  the  power  of  the  cross.  If  Jesus  had  not 
died  on  Calvary ;   if  He  had  never  suffered  a  single 


2i6  SPIRITUAL   STRENGTH 

pang ;  if  He  Had  simply  come  to  the  world  with  the 
revelation  of  a  principle  which  would  secure  to  His 
followers  exemption  from  all  the  ills  that  flesh  is 
heir  to,  He  would  not  be  what  He  is  to  us  to-day. 
He  would  be  a  less  pathetic,  but  also  a  less  sublime 
figure.  Rightly  or  wrongly,  mankind  has  always 
thought  it  a  higher  thing  that  Jesus  should  have 
been  willing  to  die  for  the  world  than  that  He 
should  have  taught  us  how  to  live  without  suffering. 
But  there  are  other  points  in  which  some  of  the 
developments  of  the  principle  we  are  discussing  are 
out  of  harmony  with  the  facts  of  human  experience. 
'*  The  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in 
pain  together  until  now  .  .  .  waiteth  for  the  mani- 
festation of  the  sons  of  God."  The  story  of  sentient 
life  on  this  planet  is  truly  a  terrible  one,  and  human 
history  especially  is  one  long  tragedy.  It  is  pos- 
sible to  exaggerate  the  horrific  side  of  the  conditions 
of  our  earthly  existence,  but  no  one  will  deny  that 
from  the  dawn  of  history  until  to-day  pain  and 
struggle  have  been  the  accompaniment  of  all  moral 
progress.  No  explanation  that  has  ever  yet  been 
given  of  the  presence  of  these  things  in  God's  world 
can  be  regarded  as  entirely  satisfactory,  but  to  say 
that  they  need  not  be  here  or  that  they  can  be 
eliminated  by  the  simple  expedient  of  believing  in 
the  power  of  the  indwelling  good  is  to  trifle  with  a 
solemn  subject.  The  problem  is  not  so  easily  dis- 
posed of  as  all  that.  If  this  is  all  my  text  means  it 
is  a  poor  satisfaction  to  our  overwhelming  sense  of 
need.  Just  think  of  it.  Recorded  human  history 
runs  back  for  nearly  ten  millenniums,  and  even  that 
is  but  a  moment  in  the  span  of  human  evolution. 
Has  all  the  welter  of  agony  and  strife  been  a  waste 


SPIRITUAL   STRENGTH  217 

and  a  blunder  which  man  might  have  avoided  if 
only  he  had  known  sooner  how  to  summon  at  com- 
mand his  indwelling  divine  resources?  In  face  of 
the  colossal  evils  of  organised  human  society  to- 
day— the  hunger  and  disease,  the  fierce  battle  for 
existence,  the  throes  of  anguish  with  which  new 
ideas  are  born,  the  risings  and  fallings  of  nations 
and  institutions — is  it  enough  to  say  that  the  indi- 
vidual need  only  retire  within  himself  in  order  to 
be  master  of  it  all  without  passing  through  the  fire  ? 
I  do  not  know  how  many  people  there  may  be  here 
this  morning,  but  I  am  quite  certain  that  there  are 
not  a  few  heavy  hearts,  and  I  am  equally  certain 
that  the  best  and  most  God-like  man  in  this  place 
is  not  the  man  who  has  learned  the  trick  of  avoid- 
ing all  pain  by  relying  upon  some  inward  source 
of  strength.  Nor  do  we  want  to  think  that  that  is 
the  aim  of  the  best  and  noblest  manhood  of  our 
day  or  any  other  day.  We  have  something  else  to 
think  of  in  life  besides  having  a  good  time,  and, 
even  if  the  good  time  be  one  of  refined  happiness 
rather  than  sensuous  delights,  it  is  still  a  selfish 
thing  to  indulge  it  while  the  majority  of  our  fellows 
remain  exposed  to  storm  and  horror.  We  do  not 
admire  the  man  who  spends  his  time  in  thinking 
how  he  may  escape  the  labour  and  the  pain  of 
earthly  existence. 

And  yet  there  is  something  to  be  said  for  the 
undying  hope  of  human  beings  that  it  is  possible 
to  reach  an  altitude  of  greater  calm  and  diviner  joy 
than  is  the  lot  of  those  who  never  lift  their  gaze 
above  the  earth.  There  is  an  exaltation  of  soul 
which  may  know  sorrow  but  forbids  despair,  a 
serenity  of  spirit  which   life's  vicissitudes  cannot 


2i8  SPIRITUAL   STRENGTH 

disturb.  I  believe  Jesus  had  this,  and  I  believe  that 
every  man  who  tries  to  live  his  life  in  the  same 
spirit  and  to  the  same  end  as  Jesus  may  have  it 
too.  This  is  a  real  thing,  so  real  that  those  who 
have  once  experienced  it  can  never  mistake  it  for 
anything  else.  It  is  indeed  a  confident  reliance 
upon  that  inexhaustible  inward  strength  which  is 
the  birthright  of  every  child  of  God.  It  is  older 
than  Christianity,  but  new  every  morning.  It  was 
what  the  Psalmist  meant  when  he  wrote:  "Thou 
wilt  keep  him  in  perfect  peace  whose  mind  is  stayed 
on  Thee."  And  it  is  exactly  what  St.  Paul  means 
when  he  says  :  "  Christ  in  you  the  hope  of  glory." 
But  mark  what  it  does.  The  man  who  becomes 
possessed  by  that  spirit  no  longer  makes  it  his  first 
aim  to  secure  immunity  from  the  ills  of  life,  but  to 
pour  forth  his  own  divine  resources  for  the  realisa- 
tion of  the  spiritual  unity  of  mankind.  He  cannot 
make  his  own  well-being  an  object  at  all,  and  yet 
he  can  do  nothing  else  but  make  war  on  human 
sin  and  sorrow.  He  cannot  spare  himself,  but  he 
can  and  does  become  strong  to  bear  the  burdens 
and  heal  the  wounds  of  suffering  humanity.  The 
spiritual  man  can  never  be  a  weak  man,  for  his 
strength  is  the  strength  of  God,  but  it  is  only  his 
for  the  work  he  has  to  do  and  the  end  he  has  to 
achieve.  It  is  a  supply  which  enables  him  to  do 
without  some  things  that  the  ordinary  man  counts 
a  necessity,  and  to  accomplish  some  things  with 
ease  and  joy  at  which  the  ordinary  man  faints  and 
fears.  For  example,  there  are  occasions  when  he 
can  do  without  sympathy,  greatly  as  he  might  desire 
to  have  it.  There  is  nothing  more  pathetically 
human  in  the  experience  of  Jesus  in  Gethsemane 


SPIRITUAL   STRENGTH  219 

than  His  longing  that  His  friends  should  under- 
stand and  bear  Him  company  in  His  trouble,  and 
there  is  nothing  more  sublime  than  the  way  in 
which  He  showed  Himself  able  to  do  without  them 
when  the  crisis  came;  they  were  all  stupefied  and 
panic  stricken,  He  alone  was  calm  and  strong. 
Where  did  this  come  from  ?  It  came  from  the  con- 
sciousness that  He  had  given  to  the  service  of  God 
all  He  had  to  give,  and  had  nothing  to  ask  for  or 
expect  so  far  as  He  Himself  was  concerned.  Grand, 
lonely  soul !  ''  Behold,  the  hour  cometh  .  .  .  that 
ye  shall  be  scattered  every  man  to  his  own  and  shall 
leave  Me  alone,  and  yet  I  am  not  alone  because  the 
Father  is  with  Me."  This  again,  you  see,  is  a  real 
thing,  a  mysterious  source  of  supernatural  strength, 
an  inward  reality  of  which  nothing  can  rob  him 
whose  life  is  offered  for  high  impersonal  ends — in 
a  word,  who  has  given  himself  to  that  spiritual 
unity  in  which  all  men  are  one. 

I  have  said  that  this  superhuman  strength  enables 
the  spiritual  man  not  only  to  do  without  ordinary 
human  aids,  but  to  dare  and  achieve  that  at  which 
the  natural  man  shrinks  and  trembles.  I  am  not 
sure  that  it  is  easy  to  say  when  and  how  the  natural 
man  passes  into  the  higher  experience.  It  is  im- 
possible for  human  wisdom  to  draw  fine  distinctions 
on  this  point.  I  would  prefer  to  say  that  in  every 
human  being  the  material  and  the  spiritual  are  con- 
trasted every  moment,  and  that  you  pass  from  one 
to  the  other  according  to  the  motive  and  emotion 
from  which  you  act.  Listen  to  the  following  short 
paragraph  from  the  latest  book  of  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells. 
The  writer  is  describing  with  the  pen  of  a  master 
the  scenes  witnessed  by  himself  and  a  friend  during 


220  SPIRITUAL   STRENGTH 

a  moonlight  walk  along  the  Thames  Embankment 
one  evening  this  winter. 

**  Along  the  Embankment,  you  see,  there  are 
iron  seats  at  regular  intervals,  seats  you  cannot  lie 
upon,lDecause  iron  arm-rests  prevent  that,  and  each 
seat,  one  saw  by  the  lamplight,  was  filled  with 
crouching  and  drooping  figures.  Not  a  vacant 
place  remained,  not  one  vacant  place.  These  were 
the  homeless,  and  they  had  come  to  sleep  here. 
Now  one  noted  a  poor  old  woman  with  a  shame- 
ful battered  straw  hat  awry  over  her  drow^sing 
face,  now  a  young  clerk  staring  before  him  at 
despair;  now  a  filthy  tramp,  and  now  a  bearded, 
frock-coated,  collarless  respectability.  I  remember 
particularly  one  ghastly  long  white  neck  and  white 
face  that  lopped  backward,  choked  in  some  night- 
mare, awakened,  clutched  with  a  bony  hand  at 
the  bony  throat,  and  sat  up  and  stared  angrily 
as  we  passed.  The  wind  had  a  keen  edge  that 
night  even  for  us,  who  had  dined  and  were  well 
clad.  One  crumpled  figure  coughed  and  went  on 
coughing — damnably 

'''Great  God!'  cried  I.  .  .  .  '  But  must  life 
always  be  like  this  ?  I  could  die — indeed,  I  would 
willingly  jump  into  this  cold  and  muddy  river  now, 
if  by  so  doing  I  could  stick  a  stiff  dead  hand 
through  all  these  things — into  the  future;  a  dead 
commanding  hand  insisting  with  a  silent,  irresist- 
ible gesture  that  this  waste  and  failure  of  life  should 
cease,  and  cease  for  ever.'  " 

There  is  the  true  ring  about  that  utterance. 
Knowing  Mr.  Wells  as  I  do,  I  know  that  it  is  not 
mere  rhetoric;  its  enthralling  force  springs  from 
its  sincerity.     If  it  is  not  the  spiritual  man  who 


SPIRITUAL    STRENGTH  221 

speaks  here,  then  I  have  never  met  the  spiritual 
man.  The  writer  of  this  passage  may  have  dropped 
down  from  the  level  here  indicated  within  the  next 
five  minutes  after  he  spoke,  but  for  the  moment  his 
word  was  the  word  of  Christ,  and  it  was  his  noblest, 
divinest  self  that  spoke.  Here  was  a  man  strong 
enough  to  die  without  hope  of  resurrection  for  the 
sake  of  the  suffering  world  of  men  and  women  of 
which  he  was  a  solitary  unit.  Now  that,  and 
nothing  less  than  that,  is  implied  in  my  text.  To 
be  strengthened  with  might  in  the  inner  man  is  so 
to  live  as  to  lose  sight  of  all  personal  aims  and 
desires  in  the  one  over-mastering  emotion  of  love 
to  God  and  man.  It  means  dying  upon  the  cross 
of  self-hood  to  live  again  in  the  glorious  up-rising 
of  a  redeemed  humanity  to  the  eternal  Father. 

Let  me  see  whether  there  is  not  in  this  some 
personal  word  for  you  who  hear  me  this  morning. 
Ill-used  people  have  come  in  here  just  now,  sorrow- 
ful people,  people  with  burdens  grievous  to  be 
borne.  There  are  some  of  you  whose  hearts  are 
filled  with  bitterness  because  of  what  you  have  lately 
had  to  endure  in  the  awful  struggle  to  live,  and  by 
that  I  do  not  mean  necessarily  that  you  are  afraid 
of  not  having  enough  to  eat.  I  mean  things  even 
more  torturing  than  the  prospect  of  physical  dis- 
comfort. There  is  the  surprise  of  treachery;  the 
shock  of  the  discovery  of  the  w^eakness  or  wicked- 
ness of  a  loved  one;  the  wretched  misunderstand- 
ing that  tears  one  heart  away  from  another  without 
hope  of  remedy.  There  are  times  in  life  when  all 
the  forces  of  hell  seem  to  conspire  against  you  at 
once,  and  you  are  almost  forced  to  disbelieve  that 
there  can  be  meaning  or  purpose  or  guiding  hand 


222  SPIRITUAL    STRENGTH 

behind  the  chaos.  Men  say  that  prosperity  is  often 
disintegrating  to  the  moral  nature,  whereas  ad^ 
versity  braces  and  energises  it;  my  observation 
teaches  me  that,  as  often  as  not,  a  man  will  prove 
too  weak  to  endure  adversity  and  preserve  his  faith 
in  good  who  could  have  remained  unharmed  and 
lovable  in  kinder  circumstances.  Yes,  I  have  seen 
more  than  one  man's  soul  expanding  under  the 
genial  influence  of  moderate  success,  and  then 
chilled  and  blighted  by  the  winter  frost  of  failure 
and  calamity;  they  have  not  been  strong  enough 
to  bear  the  worst. 

To  all  here  this  morning  who  feel  their  moral 
weakness  in  face  of  the  evil  of  life,  I  have  but  one 
word  to  say.  You  must  try  not  to  take  the  personal 
view.  Break  free  from  it  at  all  costs,  for  it  is  fatal 
to  the  higher  life.  Take  the  view  of  Jesus  that 
your  life  is  only  yours  because  it  belongs  to  us  all. 
There  is  always  turmoil,  always  danger  and  in- 
security, in  the  life  that  is  bounded  by  the  thought 
of  self.  Let  go,  and  push  out  into  the  full  ocean 
of  the  love  of  God,  and  see  how  grandly  it  will 
bear  you.  Just  realise  that  your  life  is  only  yours 
to  give  away,  and  you  can  safely  trust  it  in  the 
keeping  of  Him  by  whom  the  very  hairs  of  your 
head  are  all  numbered.  You  will  be  omnipotent 
and  invincible  in  the  work  of  the  Lord,  and  none 
can  rob  you  of  your  peace,  for  you  have  no  selfish 
end  to  gain.  I  need  not  say,  Be  strong,  for  this  in 
itself  is  strength,  this  consciousness  that  God  is 
reaching  out  through  you  to  strike  the  fetters  from 
the  limbs  of  His  children  and  open  their  prison 
doors. 


XV 

FAMINE   AND   PLENTY 

"-^  measure  of  wheat  for  a  penny  ^  and  three  ?neasures 
of  barley  for  a  penny  j  and  see  thou  hurt  not  the  oil  and 
the  wine:'' — Rev.  vi.  6. 

This  is  another  of  those  cryptic  sayings  from 
the  book  of  Revelation  which,  so  far  as  external 
form  is  concerned,  convey  so  little  to  the  modern 
mind.  I  question  whether  there  are  very  many  in  the 
congregation  this  morning  who  have  ever  thought 
about  these  words  before,  and  yet  they  relate  to  a 
kind  of  human  experience  which  has  repeated  itself 
a  good  many  times  in  ages  past  and  still  consti- 
tutes a  formidable  problem  for  the  world.  You  will 
soon  see  what  that  experience  is  if  we  try  to  go 
back  a  little  into  history  and  see  with  the  eyes  of 
the  writer  of  this  sentence.  There  is  a  message  in 
his* words  too — a  warning  and  an  appeal.  It  is 
my  duty  to  bring  out  both  and  set  them  before  you 
as  well  as  I  can. 

From  what  I  have  previously  said  about  this 
book  of  Revelation  you  will  not  be  surprised  if  I 
ask  you  to  put  aside  all  idea  that  this  passage  has 
any  specific  reference  to  events  which  have  yet  to 
take  place.  An  enormous  amount  of  time  has  been 
wasted  in  the  past  by  those  who  have  taken  for 
granted  that  the  symbolism  of  this  strange  book  is 

223 


224  FAMINE    AND    PLENTY 

a  veiled  forecast  of  the  history  of  mankind  right 
on  to  our  own  times  and  even  beyond  them.  It  is 
nothing  of  the  sort.  It  is  a  description  of  what 
was  taking  place  there  and  then.  The  man,  or 
m.en,  who  wrote  this  book  never  anticipated  that 
the  world  would  go  on  as  long  as  it  has  or  that 
history  would  shape  itself  as  has  proved  to  be  the 
case.  Perhaps  I  ought  rather  to  say  they  never 
anticipated  that  the  world  would  go  on  sinning  and 
suffering  as  it  has ;  they  certainly  thought  it  would 
go  on,  but  they  were  hoping  for  a  speedy  advent 
of  Christ  and  a  thorough  regeneration  of  human 
affairs — a  kind  of  supernatural  social  revolution, 
after  which  things  would  go  on  happily  and  pros- 
perously for  ever.  It  is  difficult  for  modern  readers 
of  the  New  Testament  to  grasp  this  point  of  view ; 
I  have  no  doubt  that  to  some  of  my  hearers  at  this 
moment  it  is  entirely  new,  but  if  you  can  once  get 
hold  of  it  you  will  find  that  it  will  light  up  the 
whole  of  the  New  Testament  for  you  in  a  marvel- 
lous way.  I  think  you  will  find  that  it  will  help 
to  make  some  parts  of  it  much  more  interesting 
than  before.  Suppose  we  occupy  a  few  minutes 
now  in  trying  to  see  with  the  eyes  of  the  man  who 
wrote  the  part  of  the  book  of  Revelation  which 
contains  my  text.  We  must  try  to  imagine  quite 
a  different  world  from  that  in  which  you  and  I  live 
now.  For  one  thing  it  was  not  so  large.  All 
civilisation — or  nearly  all — was  comprised  in  the 
communities  which  lay  around  the  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean  Sea.  I  suppose  you  know  why 
this  sheet  of  water  was  called  the  Mediterranean; 
it  was  because  it  lay,  as  the  name  implies,  in  the 


FAMINE    AND    PLENTY  225 

middle  of  the  civilised  world.  Just  at  the  time 
when  Christianity  began  its  career  all  this  vast 
territory  had  been  brought  under  the  dominion  of 
the  Roman  C^sars;  it  was  one  enormous  empire 
held  together  by  military  strength.  Many  different 
races  lay  within  its  mighty  grip;  Rome  had  no 
rival,  and  her  reigning  emperor,  whoever  he  might 
be,  was  therefore  fittingly  called  "  lord  of  the 
world."  Political  freedom  had  been  crushed  out, 
although  in  other  respects  the  Roman  policy  was  to 
be  tolerant  of  local  and  national  customs  and 
religions. 

But  there  was  one  religion  of  which  Rome  was 
not  tolerant,  and  that  was  the  new  faith  which  was 
becoming  known  as  Christianity.  Christianity  was 
not  respectable  then;  it  was  despised  and  dreaded 
in  much  the  same  way  as  Socialism  is  now,  and 
for  very  similar  reasons.  If  the  Christian  preachers 
of  that  day  had  only  confined  themselves  to  preach- 
ing the  hope  of  immortality,  and  telling  men  to 
believe  in  the  atoning  work  of  Christ  in  order  that 
they  might  go  to  heaven  when  they  died,  you  may 
be  quite  sure  they  would  have  had  to  suffer  no 
persecution  for  their  opinions;  Rome  would  only 
have  laughed  at  them  as  crazy  visionaries.  But 
when  we  find  that,  instead  of  laughing,  even  the 
strongest  of  the  Roman  emperors — such  as  Domi- 
tian  and  Marcus  Aurelius — regarded  them  as  a 
danger,  and  adopted  the  most  rigorous  methods  in 
order  to  stamp  out  their  teaching,  we  know  at  once 
that  the  Christian  evangel  must  have  been  one  that 
assailed  the  existing  political  and  social  order  and 
threatened  its  overthrow.  Now  this  is  exactly 
15 


226  FAMINE    AND    PLENTY 

what  was  taking  place.     Under  the  enthusiasm  of 
the   new  spirit  which   the   religion   of   Jesus   had 
poured  forth  upon  the  world,   thousands  of  men 
and   women   were   proclaiming   the   overthrow   of 
materialism,  tyranny,  privilege,  pride  of  place  and 
power,  cruelty,  and  the  exploitation  of  the  many 
for  the  benefit  of  the  few.    The  gospel  which  was 
preached  in  the  name  of  Jesus  was  not  merely  the 
promise  of  plenty  to  eat  and  drink,  but  of  human 
happiness,     brotherhood,     and     exalted     spiritual 
achievement.    The    followers    of    Jesus    fired    the 
imagination  of  mankind  with  the  hope,  or  rather  the 
confident  expectation,  of  an  ideal  world  from  which 
poverty  and  oppression  should  disappear  for  ever 
They  told  men  plainly  that  society  as  it  was  then 
organised  was  contrary  to  the  divine  will  and  alto- 
gether inconsistent  with  the  ideal  of  their  Master. 
They  maintained  that  in  the  new  order  there  would 
be  no  Caesar  and  no  sword.    Is  it  any  wonder  that 
the  Csesars  began  to  dread  the  spread  of  such  revolu- 
tionary  opinions?     If   all   men   accepted   them   it 
would  mean  a  speedy  end  of  their  dominion.    You 
know,  too,  I  suppose,  how  the  Christians  thought 
the  great  change  was  going  to  come  about.     They 
believed  that  before  very  long  Jesus  would  appear 
and  dethrone  Csesar,  as  well  as  all  the  Herods  and 
Pilates  who  were  his  subordinates  in  the  various 
provinces  of  this  world-wide  empire.     When  this 
was  done  Jesus  would  mount  the  throne  himself, 
and  reign  with  undisputed  sway  over  a  perfectly 
contented  and  happy  human  society,  which  would 
be  called  the  Kingdom  of  God.     In  one  way  they 
were  mistaken   in  expecting  this;   the  Christ  has 


FAMINE    AND    PLENTY  227 

never  come  in  that  way,  and  it  would  not  be  the 
best  and  most  desirable  thing  that  He  should;  it 
would  only  be  an  external  deliverance  after  all  if 
He  did,  and  the  world  needs  something  more 
thorough  than  that.  But  in  the  main  they  were 
absolutely  right.  The  one  great  thing  that  the 
world  needs  is  that  the  spirit  of  Christ,  which  is 
the  spirit  of  brotherhood,  should  expel  the  spirit 
of  materialism,  selfishness,  and  hate.  That  change 
is  coming,  and  its  victory,  though  slow,  will  be 
sure. 

But  at  the  time  when  my  text  was  written  all 
these  Christians  believed  it  to  be  quite  near  at  hand. 
They  saw  that  this  vast  and  heterogeneous  Roman 
dominion  was  seething  with  discontent.  They  saw 
one-third  of  the  total  population  held  in  wretched 
and  cruel  slavery.  They  saw  how  cheaply  human 
life  was  regarded  and  how  merciless  those  in  power 
were  to  those  who  opposed  them.  Every  day  some 
of  their  own  number  were  dragged  off  to  prison, 
torture,  or  death.  Delicate  women  as  well  as 
strong  men  were  flogged  in  the  streets  or  thrown  to 
the  lions  in  the  amphitheatres.  A  devil  incarnate 
like  the  Emperor  Nero  burned  them  alive  as  an 
entertainment  for  his  guests  at  a  garden  party. 
What  a  garden  party  !  and  what  guests  !  Well 
might  Anthony  Trollope  say  that  bad  as  men  are 
to-day,  we  may  thank  God  they  are  not  as  men 
were  in  the  days  of  the  Caesars.  All  this  fierce 
persecution,  and  terrible  suffering — suffering  which 
they  shared  with  all  the  enslaved  and  downtrodden 
among  the  subjects  of  the  Roman  Empire— was  to 
the  Christians  the  travail  which  was  having  to  be 


228  FAMINE    AND   PLENTY 

endured  before  the  birth  of  the  new  order.  So 
when  they  met  together  in  their  assemblies  in  one 
another's  houses  or  in  the  dark  catacombs  under- 
ground, they  used  to  sing  with  a  fervour  their 
descendants  have  lost : 

Glory  be  to  God  in  the  highest, 
And  on  earth  peace, 
Good  will  amongst  men. 

You  see  they  meant  it;  this  is  what  many  of  them 
were  dying  for ;  this  was  the  great  ideal  that  carried 
them  through.  They  believed  in  it  with  all  their 
might,  and  if  their  successors  had  gone  on  believ- 
ing it  in  the  same  way  we  should  have  had  it  long 
before  now.  They  believed  that  all  the  tribulation 
which  w^as  overtaking  the  empire  was  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end.  Christ  in  heaven  was  opening  the 
seals  of  judgment,  and  with  the  opening  of  the  last 
He  Himself  would  appear  on  earth  and  drive  all 
evil  out  before  Him.  The  opening  of  the  seals  as 
described  in  the  chapter  before  us  is  therefore 
simply  a  description  of  what  was  actually  going  on 
in  the  world  at  that  moment.  It  was  the  break-up 
of  the  Roman  empire.  The  rider  on  the  white 
horse,  for  instance,  wuth  the  bow  in  his  hand  repre- 
sents the  barbarous  invaders  who  were  attacking 
the  empire  from  the  east  and  north-east.  They 
were  called  the  Parthians,  and  were  irregular 
cavalry  like  the  modern  Cossacks.  These  wild 
warriors  were  swift  and  fearless  riders  who  could 
use  the  bow  and  arrow  with  deadly  precision.  The 
rider  on  the  red  horse  stands  for  civil  war  :  every 
now  and  then  some  successful  Roman  general  tried 


FAMINE    AND   PLENTY  229 

to  make  himself  emperor,  and  occasionally  one  suc- 
ceeded. The  black  horse  and  his  rider  represent 
famine,  just  as  the  pale  horse  meant  plague  and 
pestilence.  All  these  things  were  going  on  there 
and  then — invasion,  civil  strife,  hunger  and  want, 
disease  and  death.  It  w^as  the  break-up  of  an  old 
order  and  the  beginning  of  a  new.  Unfortunately 
that  new  order  did  not  produce  the  ideal  of  which 
these  first  Christians  dreamed.  The  very  things 
against  which  they  inveighed  most  earnestly  were 
continued  under  new  forms.  The  old  problems 
are  here  still,  not  so  terrible  perhaps,  but  terrible 
enough  to  any  lover  of  humanity. 

Now  that  we  see  what  was  meant  by  the  sym- 
bolism of  the  ride  on  the  black  horse  let  us  look  a 
little  more  closely  into  the  actual  language  of  the 
text.  As  this  spectre  of  famine  leaps  forth  upon 
the  earth,  holding  up  the  balances  in  his  hand,  a 
voice  from  heaven  seems  to  say:  "A  measure  of 
wheat  for  a  penny,  and  three  measures  of  barley  for 
a  penny;  and  see  thou  hurt  not  the  oil  and  the 
wine."  What  a  curious  utterance!  Here  is  a 
piece  of  fine  irony  indeed  !  This  measure  of  wheat 
was  one  person's  allowance  for  one  day.  The 
penny  was  worth  between  sixpence  and  sevenpence 
of  our  money,  and  its  purchasing  power  measured 
by  present-day  standards  would  amount  to  several 
shillings ;  this  was  therefore  a  famine  price  for  food. 
Barley  was  the  coarse  bread  of  the  poor,  the  plainest 
and  cheapest  that  could  be  got;  here  was  the  famine 
price  for  a  family  of  three.  The  oil  and  the  wine 
were  the  luxury  of  the  rich,  and  at  this  time  the 
luxury  of  the  Roman  capital  had  become  shameless 


230  FAMINE    AND    PLENTY 

and  brutal.    Utterly  regardless  of  the  sufferings  of 
the  lower  ranks  of  society,  the  privileged  orders  in 
the  State  vied  with  each  other  in  wallowing  in  the 
most  senseless  extravagance.    Thus  we  read  of  the 
emperor  having  his  dish  of  peacocks'  tongues  and 
his  baths  of  wine  and  milk;  or  of  the  senator  who 
caused  a  slave  to  be  flung  to  the  lampreys  in  the 
miniature  lake  which  occupied  the  centre  of  his 
enormous  dining   hall.     The   slave's   offence   was 
some  small  breach  of  etiquette  in  serving  at  table. 
The  guests  were  much  annoyed  at  the  sentence,  not 
because  of  the  horrible  death  of  the  slave,  but  be- 
cause of  the  noise  he  made  fighting  for  his  life, 
which  they  considered  a  breach  of  decorum  !     His 
owner  ought  to  have  had  his  throat  cut  quietly  in 
a  back  room  instead  of  being  guilty  of  the  bad 
form  of  allowing  his  screams  of  agony  to  interfere 
with  the  comfort  of  his  guests  to  such  an  extent  as 
to  interrupt  their  refined  conversation  !     Not  a  sug- 
gestion   of    pity !     Not    the    faintest    perception, 
apparently,  that  all  their  heartless  luxury  was  drain- 
ing away  the  life-blood  of  groaning  millions  far 
beyond  the  stately  walls  of  the  imperial  city.     This 
is  where  the  irony  of  the  text  comes  in.    The  poor 
are  starving  for  bread,  but  the  oil  and  the  wine  are 
as  plentiful  as  ever  on  the  table  and  in  the  toilet 
of  their  cruel  masters.     How  long  was  this  to  last  ? 
We  know  that  it  did  not  last.   The  Christians  called 
it  wickedness,  and  prophesied  its  doom.   The  doom 
came.    Rome  fell.    That  corrupt  and  inhuman  state 
of  things  was  swept  away  by  the  raging  torrent  of 
barbarism  that  broke  forth  upon  the  empire  of  the 
Caesars.   The  writer  of  my  text  was  right :  Luxury, 


FAMINE    AND    PLENTY  231 

hand  in  hand  with  callous  cruelty,  was  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end. 

We  have  now  reached  another  turning-point  in 
history,  when  men  are  asking  themselves  whether 
the  ideals  they  have  been  used  to  are  morally  justi- 
fiable or  communally  wise.     It  seems  to  me  that  if 
the  man  who  wrote  the  sentence  which  forms  my 
text  could  be  brought  back  from  the  unseen  world 
and  placed  in  our  midst  in  London  to-day,  he  might 
think  his  words  had  still  a  certain  applicability  to 
the  condition  of  society.     I  have  no  doubt  he  would 
be  greatly  surprised  to  find  that  it  was  so.     He 
would  realise  that  the  Roman  empire  had  gone,  but 
that  the  Kingdom  of  God  had  not  come.    He  would 
miss  the  Roman  soldier,  but  would  find  Europe  an 
armed  camp.     He  would  expect  to  find  no  poor^ 
what  then  would  he  think  as  he  saw  our  slums  and 
workhouses  ?   Above  all,  he  would  be  surprised  and 
confounded  to  behold  Christianity  enthroned  and 
endowed  while  the  very  thing  against  which   its 
evangel  was  originally  directed  was  still  flourishing 
before  our  very  eyes.     He  would  w^onder  what  new 
brand  of  Christianity  this  was ;  he  would  be  able  to 
recognise  in  it  little  except  the  name.     He  would 
see  earnest  servants  of  God  at  work  everywhere 
endeavouring  to  deal  kindly  with  the  sunken  and 
degraded,  but  he  would  be  astonished  beyond  mea- 
sure to  find  that  the  average  Christian  thought  of 
poverty  and  misery  as  part  of  the  natural  order  of 
things,  to  go  on  as  long  as  the  world  lasted.    This 
would  be  a  new  gospel  to  him,  and  to  call  it  Christi- 
anity would  puzzle  him  until  he  got  used  to  it;  I 
question  if  he  ever  would  get  used  to  it.     If  he 


232  FAMINE    AND    PLENTY 

came  into  church  this  morning  I  wonder  what  he 
would  think.  He  would  see  me  up  here  preaching, 
and  you  down  there  listening,  but  he  would  want  to 
know  why  we  took  the  trouble  to  come  and  what 
was  to  be  the  outcome  of  our  meeting  together.  If 
he  picked  up  an  ordinary  religious  newspaper — sup- 
posing him  able  to  read  English — and  read  long 
screeds  about  the  eastward  position  at  communion, 
the  carrying  of  the  gospel — which  means  a  new  set 
of  opinions — to  the  heathen,  the  deplorable  and 
growing  indifference  to  ''sin,''  and  such-like,  he 
would  be  still  more  at  sea.  If  he  heard  that  a 
wealthy  peer,  whose  income  was  derived  from  rents 
for  which  he  never  did  a  stroke  of  work  or  from  the 
labour  of  operatives  whom  he  never  saw,  was  hold- 
ing forth  on  a  mission  platform  about  the  decay  of 
the  sense  of  sin  he  would  want  to  know  what  he 
meant  by  sin.  See  here,  he  would  say,  the  only 
sin  in  the  world  is  that  of  making  or  keeping  people 
degraded  and  wretched.  What  other  kind  of  sin 
can  there  be?  What  are  you  doing  to  remove  the 
root  causes  of  suffering  and  shame  ?  If  you  have 
power  why  don't  you  use  it?  Are  you  content  that 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  your  fellow-creatures 
have  to  live  the  life  of  brutes  or  fight  hard  to  live 
at  all  while  you  can  enjoy  the  best,  and  pass  from 
one  interest  to  another  at  your  pleasure  ?  The  rider 
on  the  black  horse  is  still  holding  up  his  balances, 
and  it  is  a  niggardly  dole  that  he  measures  out  to 
the  poor  and  unfortunate;  he  does  not  touch  your 
oil  and  wine ;  your  place  in  life  is  secure ;  you  have 
no  anxiety  about  the  future;  hard  winters  and  loss 
of  employment  do  not  affect  you.     What  is  it,  then, 


FAMINE    AND    PLENTY  233 

that  you  are  preaching  about  ?  Sin  against  God  ? 
What  is  sin  against  God  but  doing  or  permitting 
harm  against  man  ?  Put  yourself  in  your  brother's 
place.  Suppose  that  this  very  day  some  man  or 
body  of  men  were  in  a  position  to  take  away  your 
oil  and  wine  and  reduce  you  to  barley  bread,  the 
price  of  which  you  would  have  to  slave  for  from 
morn  till  eve,  from  year  to  year,  and  even  then 
were  not  always  sure  of  it.  Suppose  your  refined 
surroundings  disappeared,  your  refined  friends  like- 
wise, and  that  your  abode  were  the  slum,  not  of 
your  own  will  but  some  one  else's  !  Do  you  think 
it  would  make  any  difference  to  your  views  about 
sin  and  salvation  and  the  service  of  God? 

I  say  that  if  the  wrfter  of  this  text  could  come 
back  among  us,  and  really  understood  what  was 
going  on,  this  is  much  the  way  in  which  he  v/ould 
speak  to  us.  There  would  be  no  mistake  about  it. 
Perhaps  he  w^ould  speak  more  harshly,  for  he  would 
be  shocked  and  scandalised  to  find  that  Christianity 
had  not  done  more  than  it  has  to  regenerate  the 
world.  He  would  detect  the  false  note  at  once  in 
our  conventional  preaching  and  praying.  He 
would  tell  us  that  it  was  all  nonsense  that  men 
needed  to  be  saved  from  the  wrath  of  God  in  the 
next  world;  he  would  say  that  they  needed  to  be 
saved  from  o^ne  another  in  this.  There  is  a  truth 
in  the  doctrine  of  the  wrath  of  God,  but  it  is  not 
what  is  commonly  preached.  If  God's  judgments 
descend  upon  unrighteousness  the  test  will  be, 
"  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  or  did  it  not."  He  would 
tell  us  that  as  Christians  what  we  have  to  do  is  to 
denounce  and  make  war  upon  everything  which  is 


234  FAMINE    AND    PLENTY 

contrary  to  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  whether  in  our 
public  institutions  or  our  private  conduct.  He 
would  insist  that  compromise  is  treason.  He 
would  declare  that  we  have  no  business  to  call  our- 
selves the  followers  of  Jesus  while  continuing  to 
accept  and  profit  by  conditions  which  put  a  barrier 
between  us  and  our  fellows.  He  would  simply 
point  to  facts.  He  would  say,  Here  are  the  very 
things  for  protesting  against  which  the  Christians 
of  the  first  century  were  persecuted  and  put  to 
death.  Why  have  you  made  terms  with  them? 
Here  are  still  the  power  of  wealth,  the  power  of 
high  position,  the  power  of  the  sword.  Here  on 
the  other  hand  are  poverty,  misery,  and  crime. 
Why  is  it  not  a  struggle  to  the  death  between  you 
and  all  these?  There  ought  to  have  been  an  end 
of  these  things  eighteen  hundred  years  ago.  Chris- 
tianity and  these  things  ought  not  to  be  able  to  live 
together  in  the  same  world;  one  ought  to  have 
killed  the  other  long  ago.  Perhaps  one  has  killed 
the  other.  Your  respectable  Christianity  is  some- 
thing more  than  a  failure ;  is  it  Christianity  at  all  ? 

In  speaking  like  this  I  am  conscious  that  my 
words  are  open  to  a  certain  misconstruction.  They 
seem  like  a  sweeping  indictment  of  the  faith  which 
I  myself  believe  and  profess.  But  it  is  far  indeed 
from  being  that.  I  know  only  too  well  how  easy  it 
is  for  an  ideal  to  lose  force  when  it  becomes  em- 
bodied in  an  institution.  As  soon  as  it  has  tasted 
the  oil  and  wine  of  worldly  power  and  affluence  it 
loses  vigour  without  being  absolutely  destroyed. 
Its  vision  becomes  less  clear,  and  energy  becomes 
dissipated  in  side  issues.  This  is  what  has  hap- 
pened to  the  religion  of  Jesus.    Broadly  speaking 


FAMINE    AND    PLENTY  235 

it  has  ceased  to  lead  the  world  because  it  has  for- 
gotten what  it  set  out  to  do  for  the  world.  The 
famine  is  here  still ;  the  great  mass  of  toiling,  suffer- 
ing men  and  women  are  crying  out  for  more  abund- 
ant life,  and  most  of  us  have  failed  even  to  see  the 
greatness  of  the  need.  We  do  not  understand  it. 
The  burden-bearers  of  mankind  have  only  the  three 
measures  of  barley,  while  our  great  anxiety  is  that 
they  should  not  interfere  with  our  oil  and  wine.  If 
they  do  we  call  them  materialists,  and  point  out 
that  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  not  meat  and  drink. 
No  more  it  is,  but  neither  is  it  the  oil  and  wine.  It 
is  brotherhood,  not  privilege  and  exclusiveness. 
Here  is  an  issue  before  us  which  there  is  no  possi- 
bility of  avoiding :  While  there  is  a  single  man, 
woman,  or  child  going  hungry  or  degraded, 
unable  to  think  of  anything  but  hand-to-mouth 
existence,  in  Christendom  to-day,  the  Kingdom  of 
God  has  not  come ;  and  if,  in  the  presence  of  such 
a  state  of  things,  professing  Christians  are  content 
to  declare  it  inevitable,  and  to  organise  in  defence 
of  their  own  oil  and  wine,  they  have  forgotten  all 
about  what  the  original  Christianity  came  to  do. 

But  this  is  not  the  only  kind  of  application  which 
my  text  ought  to  receive.  It  reaches  down  very 
deep  into  the  human  heart,  and  into  the  most  inti- 
mate human  relationships.  All  through  our  com- 
mon experience  runs  this  contrast  between  famine 
and  plenty,  the  measure  of  barley  and  the  oil  and 
wine.  Observe  how  often  in  human  affairs  one  man 
will  not  only  remain  indifferent  to  the  privation  of 
another,  but  even  cause  it,  and  yet  never  dream  of 
holding  himself  culpable.  Here,  for  instance,  is 
some  glaring  wrong  which  has  to  be  set  right.     In 


236  FAMINE    AND    PLENTY 

such  a  world  as  ours  the  man  who  moves  in  that 
direction  has  inevitably  to  take  risks,  and  one  of  the 
greatest  of  these  risks  is  that  he  may  be  deserted  at 
the  critical  moment  by  those  upon  whom  he  thought 
he  could  depend.  They  may  see  the  matter  as 
plainly  as  he,  but  they  have  no  intention  of  ex- 
changing their  oil  and  wine  for  barley  bread.  It  is 
nice  to  be  thought  well  of,  to  be  praised  for  modera- 
tion, to  be  looked  upon  as  above  all  things  a 
**  safe  "  man,  which  is  only  another  word  for  a 
coward.  You  may  have  this  agreeable  experience 
if  you  are  only  willing  to  fulfil  the  conditions.  All 
you  have  to  do  is  to  sell  your  soul :  act  a  lie  without 
saying  it;  sacrifice  the  friend  whom  you  know  to  be 
perfectly  in  the  right,  but  whom  you  do  not  find  it 
convenient  to  acknowledge.  It  would  be  still  more 
to  your  advantage  if  you  could  work  up  a  little 
indignation  and  denounce  him.  See  what  follows  : 
you  have  made  his  task  harder;  you  have  not  only 
left  him  to  bear  the  shock  of  events  alone,  you  have 
isolated  him  and  intensified  the  odds  against  which 
he  has  to  strive.  For  him  the  externals  of  life  are 
poor  and  dark;  for  you  they  are  rich  and  bright. 
He  has  the  barley  bread;  you  have  the  oil  and  wine. 
Yet,  oh  coward  soul,  he  knows  more  of  the  king- 
dom of  truth  than  you.  He  is  a  son  of  the  morn- 
ing, and  you  a  child  of  the  night.  Heaven  has  left 
you  your  oil  and  wine,  but  they  are  a  poor  com- 
pensation for  all  that  you  have  missed. 

Ah,  yes,  life  is  a  strange  medley.  The  rider  on 
the  black  horse  is  always  passing  to  and  fro  amid 
the  busy  haunts  of  men.  Happy  are  those  who  fear 
not  the  famine  so  long  as  they  may  be  true  to  them- 
selves and  God ;  most  wretched  are  they  who  think 


FAMINE   AND   PLENTY  237 

about  nothing  but  the  oil  and  the  wine.  To  hear 
men  talk  one  would  think  nothing  mattered  in 
comparison  with  being  successful  and  comfortable 
in  the  things  of  this  world.  How  they  scream  out 
when  these  are  threatened  !  "  Oh,  do  not  ask  me 
for  anything  that  involves  trouble,  inconvenience, 
self-sacrifice  !"  is  their  general  attitude.  *'  Calvary 
is  very  nice  to  sing  about,  but  we  do  not  want  any 
Calvaries  now.  Do  not  seek  anything  from  us  that 
involves  privation,  loss,  loneliness,  or  meagre  joys  ; 
we  believe  in  being  God's  beneficiaries,  not  His 
pioneers."  And  God  takes  them  at  their  word.  If 
a  man  wants  that  kind  of  life  he  can  have  it.  Of 
all  forms  of  materialism  the  worst  and  subtlest  are 
those  which  masquerade  as  Christian  virtues — your 
smug  respectability,  your  Smooth  hypocrisy,  your 
careful  avoidance  of  everything  reprehensible,  your 
silence  in  the  presence  of  what  you  know  to  be 
mean,  base,  and  wicked ;  your  unwillingness  to  face 
the  right  or  wrong  of  that  from  which  you  happen 
to  benefit ;  your  tacit  support  of  that  which  in  your 
heart  of  hearts  you  know  means  the  suffering  of 
others  that  you  may  enjoy.  The  sentence  of  heaven 
is  passed  upon  you,  "  See  that  thou  hurt  not  the  oil 
and  the  wine."  You  can  keep  them  until  the  last 
enemy  of  all  rides  forth,  and  his  name  is  death. 
God  has  given  no  instructions  to  death  to  spare 
the  coward  and  the  time-server.  And  then — why 
then  I  think  there  will  be  some  surprises  in  store. 
The  last  thing  that  would  be  possible  in  a  well- 
ordered  universe  would  be  that  those  who  have 
chosen  the  easy  road  here  should  find  it  equally 
easy  in  the  world  to  come.  And  I  mean  exactly 
what   I   say  when   I   add   that  this  category  will 


238  FAMINE    AND    PLENTY 

include  the  great  majority  of  those  who  are 
regarded  as  the  leaders  of  light  and  order  in  this 
world.  Most  of  them  would  be  utterly  contempt- 
ible if  they  were  not  so  pitiable.  To  be  a  real 
follower  of  Christ,  and  yet  on  good  terms  with  the 
established  order  in  Church  and  State,  is  a  sheer 
impossibility. 

So,  as  we  part  company  this  morning,  let  me  ask 
you  to  search  your  hearts  in  the  light  of  my  text 
and  see  where  you  stand.  The  rider  on  the  black 
horse  is  going  by  your  door  this  very  day.  There 
will  be  plenty  of  suffering  where  he  passes — famine 
of  substance,  famine  of  friendship,  famine  of  oppor- 
tunity and  earthly  joy.  He  is  in  this  church  at  this 
moment.  There  are  some  people  here  now  to  whom 
he  is  doling  out  the  meagre  fare  that  is  the  bread 
of  sorrow.  Poor  children  of  pain,  I  am  not  talking 
to  you  :  I  am  talking  to  the  man  who  spends  most 
of  his  time  in  caring  for  the  outside  of  life.  That 
grim  rider  may  let  him  alone  and  leave  him  to  his 
oil  and  wine.  Yet  when  the  last  seal  is  broken, 
and  the  naked  soul  stands  face  to  face  with  Christ, 
the  barley  bread  which  has  been  the  portion  of  the 
servant  of  truth  and  right  will  be  seen  to  have  been 
infinitely  preferable  to  the  oil  and  wine  of  selfish- 
ness and  material  gain.  If  we  all  knew  now  what 
we  shall  all  know  then,  there  would  be  no  hesitation 
about  our  choice.  Better  the  worst  in  the  service 
of  Christ— the  real  Christ— than  the  best  without 
Him.  Better  the  famine  and  be  true,  than  the  oil 
and  wine  with  the  lie.  Better  all  the  suffering  of  life 
put  together  than  miss  the  glory  of  the  Kingdom 
of  love. 


XVI 

THE   SILENCE   OF   HEAVEN 

"  And  when  he  had  opened  the  seventh  seal^  there  was 
sile7ice  in  heaven  about  the  space  of  half  an  hour^'' — 
Rev.  viii.  i. 

Some  of  you  may  be  thinking  that  this  is  a 
strange  text,  and  so  indeed  it  is.  But  it  appears 
in  an  equally  strange  setting,  and  if  we  can  do  any- 
thing towards  understanding  the  one  perhaps  we 
may  be  able  to  understand  the  other.  I  do  not 
remember  having  taken  a  text  from  the  Book  of 
Revelation  on  a  Thursday  morning  before,  although 
I  have  more  than  once  done  so  on  Sunday.  It  may 
be  as  well,  therefore,  to  state  in  a  few  words  the 
general  point  of  view  from  which  to  approach  this 
book,  and  with  which  my  Sunday  congregation  is 
already,  I  hope,  fairly  familiar. 

To  call  this  book  the  Book  of  Revelation  is  a 
somewhat  curious  use  of  terms;  it  might  more  ap- 
propriately be  designated  the  book  of  obscuration, 
for  I  will  defy  any  one  to  tell  us  in  detail  what  it 
means.  It  has  always  possessed  a  fascination  for 
those  who  like  to  peer  into  the  future,  and  who  take 
for  granted  that  such  apocalyptic  writings  as  this 
and  the  Book  of  Daniel  were  intended  as  an  elabor- 
ate forecast  of  events  which  have  yet  to  take  place 

239 


240         THE   SILENCE    OF    HEAVEN 

in  the  history  of  the  world.  Unfortunately  for  the 
interpretations  which  have  been  given,  and  are  still 
being  given,  no  two  of  them  agree  even  in  funda- 
mentals. We  used  to  be  assured,  for  instance,  that 
the  Scarlet  Woman  was  the  Church  of  Rome;  I 
believe  there  was  a  novel  written  not  long  ago  with 
this  title  which  professed  to  expose  some  of  the 
enormities  of  that  Church.  But  nothing  is  more 
certain  than  that,  whatever  else  the  writer  of  the 
Book  of  Revelation  may  have  foreseen,  he  never 
foresaw  the  Church  of  Rome  as  she  exists  to-day, 
and  never  dreamed  of  associating  her  with  the 
Scarlet  Woman.  As  for  the  Anti-Christ  referred  to 
in  these  pages,  heaven  only  knows  how  many  his- 
torical characters  have  been  cast  for  the  part  even 
in  recent  years.  About  the  time  I  was  born  I  think 
Napoleon  HI  was  the  favourite,  but  he  dropped 
out  of  the  running  after  the  battle  of  Sedan.  I  saw 
on  a  railway  bookstall  the  other  day  the  current 
issue  of  a  religious  newspaper  which  still  makes  a 
feature  of  interpreting  these  supposed  prophecies, 
just  as  it  used  to  do  in  my  young  days,  and  I  could 
not  help  wondering  what  public  character  the  editor 
had  fixed  upon  as  Anti-Christ  now ;  I  should  not  be 
in  the  least  surprised  if  it  turned  out  to  be  myself. 
I  have  more  than  once  had  the  honour  of  being 
told  that  I  was  undoubtedly  the  beast  of  the  Book 
of  Revelation;  I  humbly  hope  that  you  do  not 
believe  it. 

But  with  a  congregation  of  sensible  men  and 
women  there  is  surely  little  need  to  point  out  that 
the  writer  of  this  book  never  looked  as  far  ahead 
as  the  times  in  which  we  live,  and  his  pictures  of 


THE    SILENCE    OF    HEAVEN         241 

the  future  have   no  relation  whatever  to  what  is 
taking  place  now  or  may  take  place  a  thousand 
years  hence.    He  was  writing  about  his  own  times, 
not  about  ours.    His  outlook  was  dominated  by  the 
belief,  which  all  the  early  Christians  held,  that  the 
world  would  come  to  an   end  very  speedily — or, 
rather,  that  a  general  judgment  would  soon  take 
place  at  which  all  evildoers  would  be  cast  out  of  the 
earth  and  the  Kingdom  of  God  established  with 
Christ  as  the  King.    It  might  be  a  matter  of  a  few 
months,  or  even  a  few  years,  before  this  grand  con- 
summation   would    take    place,    but    no    Christian 
thought  of  it  as  being  the  slow  growth  of  centuries. 
If  you  will  read  the  Book  of  Revelation  from  this 
point  of  view  much  of  its  language  will  become 
clearer ;  you  will  see,  for  instance,  that  the  beautiful 
picture  of  the  New  Jerusalem  contained  in  the  last 
two  chapters  refers  to  the  regeneration  of  this  world, 
not  to  a  heaven  beyond  the  tomb.    *'  And  I  saw  the 
holy  city,"  etc.     It  was  clear  to  our  writer  that 
before  this  new  order  could  be  established  all  the 
existing  world-powers  would  have  to  be  overthrown. 
Of  these  by  far  the  greatest  was  the  Roman  Empire. 
No  doubt  this  was  the  Scarlet  Woman,  and,  as  the 
book   was  evidently   written   at  a  time   when   the 
Christians  were  being  fiercely  persecuted,  it  is  quite 
probable  that  the  beast  was  the  infamous  emperor 
Nero.    The  whole  scheme  of  this  book  is  therefore 
a  picture  of  the  times  in  which  it  was  written,  to- 
gether with  a  description  of  the  catastrophes  which 
the  writer  believed  to  be  impending,  presented  in 
language  with  which  his  readers  would  be  more  or 
less  familiar.     The  elaborate  use  of  symbolism  is 
16 


242         THE    SILENCE    OF   HEAVEN 

confusing  to  us,  but  it  was  not  so  to  them.  To  a 
considerable  part  of  it  we  do  not  possess  the  key, 
for  our  mental  dialect  is  different.  This  was  quite 
a  familiar  style  of  writing  in  the  early  Christian 
centuries,  and  even  before.  We  cannot  expect  to 
understand  all  this  elaborate  symbolism,  any  more 
than  the  people  for  whom  it  was  written  would  un- 
derstand the  allusions  in  the  Times  or  the  Daily 
Mail  of  to-day's  issue;  the  whole  situation  has 
changed,  and  an  entirely  different  set  of  facts 
occupies  the  field  of  our  mental  vision. 

But  when  we  come  to  such  a  passage  as  our  text 
we  are  not  without  light  as  to  the  writer's  meaning 
and  the  true  spiritual  significance  of  what  he  says. 
He  imagines  the  purposes  of  God  concerning  man- 
kind as  being  a  sealed  book  which  only  the  glorified 
Christ  is  able  to  open,  that  is,  he  thinks  of  Christ  as 
the  arbiter  of  human  destiny.  He  sees  this  book  of 
divine  judgment  sealed  with  seven  seals,  and  as 
the  hand  of  Christ  opens  them  one  by  one  the  whole 
panorama  of  portentous  events  unrolls  itself  before 
Him,  The  interesting  part  of  this  conception  is  that 
it  is  intended  as  a  survey  of  what  was  taking  place 
in  the  world  soon  after  the  beginning  of  the  Chris- 
tian era.  Thus,  after  the  opening  of  the  first  seal, 
there  went  forth  a  rider  on  a  white  horse.  Accord- 
ing to  Professor  Ramsay  this  figure  stands  for  the 
Parthians,  who  were  at  this  time  a  terrible  scourge 
on  one  of  the  borders  of  the  unwieldy  dominion  of 
the  Caesars ;  what  these  invaders  were  doing  at  this 
moment  was  causing  as  much  vivid  interest  in  this 
ancient  world  as,  say,  the  revolutionaries  in  Russia 
or  the  exploits  of  Dinizulu  are  causing  to  us  to-day. 


THE    SILENCE    OF    HEAVEN         243 

The  writer  saw  in  these  things  the  break-up  of  the 
estabhshed  order ;  and  he  was  quite  right,  they  were 
the  beginning  of  the  end  of  the  world-wide  Roman 
Empire.  But  he  maintains,  too,  that  all  these  great 
events  were  shaping  themselves  in  accordance  with 
the  will  of  God  and  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Christ.  Should  we  not  all  agree  with  him  ?  Is 
there  anything  meaningless  or  accidental  in  the 
affairs  of  men  ?  And  is  it  not  true  that  in  all  the 
great  crises  of  history  since  Christianity  began  the 
name  and  influence  of  Jesus  have  played  an  increas- 
ing part,  until  to-day  we  should  one  and  all  con- 
fess that  to  take  Jesus  out  of  Western  civilisation 
would  be  an  impossibility?  So  far  from  losing 
ground,  He  is  gaining  it;  so  far  from  counting  for 
less,  He  is  counting  for  more.  We  are  all  watching 
the  decline  of  an  old  order  and  the  coming  of  a 
new,  and  we  all  fervently  believe  that  the  new  order 
when  it  comes  will  mean  the  triumph  of  the  spirit 
and  teaching  of  Jesus.  Thus,  this  man  saw  pretty 
clearly,  notwithstanding  his  limited  outlook  upon 
the  future.  The  principal  difTerence  between  him 
and  ourselves  is  that  he  believed  the  triumph  of 
Jesus  would  come  about  quickly  and  catastrophi- 
cally,  whereas  the  lessons  of  history  have  taught  us 
to  regard  it  as  coming  slowly,  though  inevitably,  by 
the  quiet  operation  of  the  divine  spirit  of  love  and 
brotherhood.  Spiritually,  the  writer  of  the  Book  of 
Revelation  foresaw  exactly  what  we  see  to  be 
coming  now,  although  the  events  of  contemporary 
history  which  occupied  so  much  of  his  attention 
have  long  ceased  to  possess  living  interest  for  us. 
But  what  does  that  matter?     He  believed  in  the 


244        THE   SILENCE   OF   HEAVEN 

victory  of  all  that  the  name  of  Jesus  stands  for — 
the  New  Jerusalem  coming  down  out  of  heaven 
from  God — and  so  do  we. 

You  observe  that  the  silence  of  which  our  text 
speaks  took  place  after  the  opening  of  the  last  seal. 
Can  you  not  now  see  what  this  means?  There  is 
something  pathetic  and  yet  beautiful  suggested 
here.  This  man  was  so  fully  persuaded  that  the 
end  of  all  the  wickedness  and  suffering  of  mankind 
was  just  at  hand  that  he  believed  the  seal  of  God's 
last  judgment  had  already  been  opened,  and  that 
the  long-expected  reign  of  righteousness  and  peace 
would  immediately  ensue.  But  it  did  not  come. 
There  was  no  descent  of  Christ  on  the  clouds  of 
heaven ;  no  sudden  flaming  of  Divine  splendour ; 
no  innumerable  angel  host  coming  to  the  rescue  of 
stricken  humanity.  Instead,  the  welter  of  sorrow, 
and  anguish,  and  oppression  went  on,  and  God 
made  no  sign — ''there  was  silence  in  heaven." 
But  it  cannot  be  long,  thought  the  seer.  The  last 
seal  is  broken,  it  will  only  be  a  little  while  that  we 
shall  have  to  wait ;  there  is  a  pause  in  the  activities 
of  God,  a  silence  during  which  no  sound  is  heard 
but  the  moans  of  those  who  are  being  trampled 
under  foot  by  shame  and  wrong;  but,  compared 
with  the  grief  and  darkness  behind,  this  silence  of 
God  is  but  short — only  half-an-hour.  It  is  a  climax. 
God  sits  with  uplifted  hand,  and  all  the  songs  of 
heaven  are  hushed  to  an  unbroken  stillness  while 
the  multitude,  which  no  man  can  number,  listens 
in  solemn  sympathy  to  the  sad  appeals  of  their 
brethren  who  lie  unhelped  in  the  darkness  below. 
The  glorified  angel  host  forget  their  own  blessed- 


THE    SILENCE    OF    HEAVEN         245 

ness,  forget  even  their  paeans  of  praise  to  the 
Almighty ;  their  gaze  is  no  longer  upward  upon  the 
eternal  glory,  but  downward  upon  the  struggles 
and  sufferings  of  men.  They  cannot  hear  their 
own  harmonies;  they  can  only  hear  the  sad  music 
of  humanity.  Their  stillness  is  not  the  stillness 
of  indifference,  but  of  concentrated  compassion. 
When  that  half-hour  of  silence  is  broken  it  will  not 
be  by  a  re-striking  of  the  harps  of  gold,  but  by  the 
torrential  down-rush  of  heaven  to  the  rescue  of  im- 
prisoned souls  on  earth.  That  half-hour's  pause  is 
the  hush  before  the  tornado;  it  is  the  cessation  of 
every  divine  activity  except  a  sympathetic  scrutiny 
of  the  needs  and  hopes  of  the  blind  world  that  is 
calling  out  for  God. 

This,  I  am  sure,  is  what  the  writer  of  my  text 
meant  to  convey  by  this  impressive  and  even  dra- 
matic interlude.  But  how  far  is  it  true  ?  Has  it 
really  any  significance  which  we  can  fairly  appro- 
priate? We  all  know  of  the  silence  of  heaven,  but 
it  has  lasted  longer  than  half-an-hour.  Indeed,  the 
last  seal  has  not  yet  been  broken,  and  there  may  be 
more  seals  to  break,  but  we  have  not  had  much 
indication  that  heaven  is  in  any  hurry  to  come  to 
our  deliverance.  On  goes  the  storm  of  anguish  and 
heart-break,  of  toil  and  slavery,  of  battle  and  mur- 
der, of  secret  sin  and  open  infamy,  of  plague  and 
pestilence,  of  robbery  and  starvation,  the  ceaseless 
warfare  of  evil  and  good,  in  which  the  latter  so 
often  seems  to  be  the  loser.  On,  on  it  goes,  and, 
whether  Heaven  has  paused  to  listen  or  not,  it 
makes  no  sign.  From  that  side  of  things  there  is 
only  silence. 


246         THE   SILENCE    OF    HEAVEN 

Yet,  stay  !  Is  this  all  there  is  to  be  said  on  the 
subject  ?  By  no  means.  The  charges  sometimes 
brought  against  us  preachers  are  that  we  speak 
without  discernment,  that  we  treat  our  hearers  to 
sentimental  satisfactions,  and  that  we  know  no  more 
about  the  real  meaning  of  life  than  our  forefathers 
did  or  the  wise  and  prudent  among  us  know  now. 
The  question  is  being  put  to  us  with  increasing 
force,  How  do  you  know  ?  Which  of  you  is  right  ? 
What  can  you  really  be  sure  of  ?  Some  of  you  say 
one  thing  and  some  another,  but  amid  all  your 
religious  clamour  there  is  very  little  that  is  perma- 
nently helpful  or  satisfying.  All  your  theories 
break  down  in  presence  of  the  hard  facts  of  life. 
How  do  you  know  there  is  a  God  ?  Have  you  ever 
been  to  the  further  side  of  things  to  see  ?  How  can 
you  tell  that  your  Christ  of  ages  past  did  not  make 
an  end  when  they  laid  Him  in  a  bloody  grave? 
What  tokens  have  you  that  He  is  still  able  to  affect 
the  destinies  of  humanity  ?  If  there  be  a  God,  or  a 
Christ,  or  a  heaven  of  glorified  beings,  what  are 
they  all  doing  while  man  stumbles  along  in  his 
blindness  eating  his  own  flesh  ? 

These  are  powerful  questions,  challenges  which 
pessimism  has  put  to  faith  in  all  ages,  and  never 
more  than  in  our  own.  Nevertheless,  I  think  there 
is  an  answer,  and  I  think,  too,  that  it  is  something 
more  than  theory.  It  is  far  older  than  Christianity, 
but  in  Christianity  it  mounted  to  its  highest  expres- 
sion. I  mean  the  witness  of  the  strong  soul  to  that 
which  is  stronger  and  higher  than  itself.  There  is 
one  universal  doctrine  in  which  all  men  profess  to 
believe,  and  that  is  the  doctrine  of  the  supremacy 


THE   SILENCE   OF    HEAVEN         247 

of  the  cross.  We  might  call  this  the  changeless 
creed  of  the  human  race.  It  is  essentially  Christian, 
but  it  is  not  exclusively  Christian ;  it  would  be  a 
bad  thing  if  it  were.  I  am  sure  you  all  know  what 
I  mean.  I  mean  that  inner  conviction  of  every  soul 
that  has  ever  come  to  moral  consciousness  that  the 
highest  thing  a  man  can  do  with  his  life  is  to  lay  it 
dow^n  for  the  sake  of  the  universal  life.  I  will  make 
bold  to  say  that  there  is  not  a  single  man  in  this 
church  this  morning  who  does  not  believe  that, 
although  he  might  express  it  differently  and  hedge 
it  round  with  all  kinds  of  qualifications.  I  know 
for  a  fact  that  there  are  men  here  every  Thursday 
who  would  profess  themselves  agnostics  in  regard  to 
the  meaning  of  life,  but  I  am  certain  their  agnostic- 
ism would  stop  short  here.  They  w^ould  tell  me 
they  do  not  know  whether  there  is  a  God  or  a  life 
to  come,  and  they  might  deny  my  right  to  affirm 
either  of  these  from  personal  knowledge,  but  they 
could  no  more  help  agreeing  with  me  about  the 
supremacy  of  the  cross  than  they  could  help  believ- 
ing in  their  own  manhood ;  in  fact,  to  deny  the  one 
is  to  deny  the  other. 

Now,  is  not  this  a  marvellous  and  impressive 
thing?  Go  back  as  far  as  you  like  in  human  his- 
tory, and  you  will  find  it;  examine  the  ideals  of  the 
most  advanced  civilisation — if  we  can  agree  as  to 
what  is  the  most  advanced  civilisation — and  you 
will  still  find  it  in  the  foreground.  The  savage 
knows  it  in  spite  of  his  bestiality,  and  the  saint 
reverences  it  in  his  hours  of  highest  insight.  It  is 
the  one  thing  that  makes  progress  possible  or  con- 
ceivable.   Progress  is  not  due  to  the  achievements 


248         THE   SILENCE   OF    HEAVEN 

of  mind,  but  to  the  achievements  of  soul ;  all  that 
mind  can  ever  do  is  to  register  these  achievements 
of  soul.  Behind,  beneath,  and  above  all  that  man- 
kind has  ever  attempted  or  realised  that  is  of  per- 
manent value  to  the  race  is  this  one  principle  of  the 
supremacy  of  the  cross.  As  ages  pass  on  we  are 
learning  more  fully,  perhaps,  how  the  individual 
may  most  effectually  give  himself  to  the  universal 
life,  but  we  are  discovering  nothing  new  as  to  the 
essential  greatness  of  the  giving  itself. 

Quintus  Curtius  leaping  into  the  gulf  that  threat- 
ened to  swallow  up  his  beloved  Rome,  and  the  life- 
boat man  putting  out  to  rescue  a  shipwrecked  crew 
on  the  Goodwin  Sands  are  manifestations  of  exactly 
the  same  impulse.  And  that  in  you,  my  agnostic 
fellow-citizen,  which  bids  you  hold  your  tongue 
about  a  business  trouble  for  fear  you  should  worry 
the  wife,  or  pinch  and  starve  yourself  for  the  sake 
of  your  children,  is  only  one  more  example  of  it. 
If  ever  you  see  a  man  take  his  stand  and  endure  an 
evil  for  the  sake  of  a  principle  or  an  impersonal 
ideal  you  see  the  same  thing.  Even  when  you  are 
not  noble  enough  to  do  it  yourself,  or  when  you 
think  an  individual  mistaken  as  to  the  occasion 
which  calls  forth  his  self-devotion,  you  are  still  able 
to  recognise  the  working  of  this  same  consciousness 
of  a  higher  beyond  which  has  the  right  to  demand 
the  fullest  self-immolation  and  the  most  ungrudging 
homage  on  the  part  of  the  individual.  You  will 
actually  see  it  in  what  appears  to  contradict  it.  You 
will  see  a  woman  so  completely  lost  in  the  well- 
being  of  her  lover  that  she  would  willingly  die  a 
thousand  deaths  for  him  herself,  and  yet  she  will 


THE    SILENCE    OF    HEAVEN         249 

sacrifice  other  women's  lovers  to  his  interest  with- 
out much  compunction ;  she  is  driven  by  this  same 
cosmic  impulse,  call  it  what  you  will,  but  she  only 
sees  it  in  one  particular  form  of  expression.  It  is 
what  makes  the  warrior  willing  to  die  for  his 
country,  even  while  he  strikes  down  other  patriots 
who  are  dying  for  theirs.  It  produces  martyrs  on 
both  sides  during  the  vicissitudes  of  a  great  cause. 
The  Roman  Catholics  who  kindle  the  fires  of  Smith- 
field  go  willingly  to  the  rack  and  the  scaffold  them- 
selves under  Elizabeth  and  James — always  the  same 
thing,  the  expression,  maybe  partial,  or  even,  as  we 
think,  fanatical,  but  in  every  one  of  them  there  is 
this  kernel  of  divinity,  this  homage  to  the  cross. 
You  all  know  it ;  there  is  not  one  of  you  who  does 
not  know  it;  and  every  man  and  woman  among  us 
bows  in  reverence  before  it  as  the  very  highest 
thing  of  which  humanity  has  any  experience. 

Now  will  you  please  tell  me  what  this  is  ?  Can 
you  tell  me  why  your  heart  is  touched  and  thrilled 
by  every  splendid  example  of  it  that  comes  under 
your  notice?  If  you  want  to  fire  the  imagination 
and  stir  the  pulses  of  your  fellow-men,  all  you  have 
to  do  is  to  show  them  some  Christ  on  His  Calvary 
in  real  life  and  the  thing  is  done.  The  completer 
the  oblation  the  more  power  it  has  to  move  us — 
provided  we  really  see  it  for  what  it  is.  You  may 
tell  me  you  do  not  know  what  it  is,  but  I  am  not 
talking  like  a  fool  when  I  say  I  think  I  know ;  it  is 
the  truth  about  the  universe;  it  is  that  in  man  which 
reveals  God.  If  this  is  not  God  then  the  world  has 
never  seen  God,  and  yet  has  stumbled  on  some- 
thing worthy  of  eternal  homage.     If  you  want  to 


250         THE   SILENCE   OF    HEAVEN 

find  God,  do  not  go  to  the  school-men ;  you  need 
not  concern  yourself  greatly  about  what  this  par- 
ticular preacher  is  saying  to  you  this  morning;  but 
go  out  into  the  street  and  look  for  the  first  mother 
with  a  baby  at  her  breast,  or  range  yourself  along- 
side the  man  who  has  lost  his  chance  in  life  rather 
than  stultify  his  conscience,  and  you  have  come 
upon  Him.  Better  still,  ask  yourself  what  it  is  that 
rises  up  in  sudden  protest  within  you  when  you  are 
tempted  to  do  a  mean  or  dirty  action,  and  you  will 
find  that  the  scrub  in  your  wilderness  has  flamed 
into  unearthly  splendour  and  you  are  gazing  into 
the  eyes  of  God. 

But  if  you  admit  this  much  you  will  have  to  admit 
something  more.  You  will  have  to  say  that  if  we 
are  ever  to  see  this  divine  splendour  in  its  fulness 
we  shall  have  sometime  to  forego  external  aids 
when  our  noblest  choices  are  made  and  our  greatest 
deeds  are  done.  These  ascents  are  the  hardest  to 
mount  because  we  have  to  go  alone  without  any 
support  but  that  of  God  within,  and  even  that  voice 
may  cease  to  speak  with  clearness  at  the  darkest 
moment.  Would  not  the  full  manifestation  of  the 
moral  greatness  of  Socrates  have  been  something 
short  without  that  cup  of  hemlock  ?  but  he  drank  it 
alone.  The  garment  of  flame  that  wrapped  the 
suffering  body  of  Joan  of  Arc  was  a  more  fitting 
expression  of  the  grandeur  of  her  spirit  than  the 
patents  of  nobility  which  the  King  of  France  after- 
wards conferred  upon  her  family.  Poor  Joan  !  She 
always  seemed  to  hear  heavenly  voices  urging  her 
on  while  there  was  something  to  be  done ;  but  when 
it  came  to  the  last  chapter,  and  she  could  do  nothing 


THE   SILENCE   OF   HEAVEN         251 

but  suffer,  they  were  silent  and  she  was  left  without 
consolation.  But  the  same  was  true  of  a  greater 
than  Joan  of  Arc.  The  cry  from  Calvary,  "  My 
God,  My  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  Me?"  was 
the  cry  of  the  supremest  self-oblation  that  has  ever 
been  made  in  face  of  the  silence  of  heaven.  If  it 
had  never  been  made  at  all  there  would  have  been 
something  in  human  experience  which  even  Jesus 
did  not  know,  and  a  reach  of  attainment  He  had 
never  scaled.  It  seems  a  terrible  thing  to  say,  but 
somehow  I  feel  glad  that  that  prayer  of  anguish  was 
ever  prayed.  Jesus  cried,  and  heaven  was  silent, 
lest  it  should  rob  Him  of  His  last  and  highest 
glory,  the  glory  of  having  laid  everything  upon 
the  altar  of  sacrifice  without  any  consciousness  of 
personal  satisfaction  or  reward.  For  one  awful  half- 
hour,  so  to  speak,  heaven  watched  in  silence,  and 
then  the  soul  of  Jesus  rose  into  the  light  in  all  the 
majesty  of  a  divinity  which  knew  no  more  of  failure 
and  death. 

Will  you  not  take  this  truth  home  to  your  own 
hearts  ?  There  must  be  many  of  you  who  need  it. 
In  the  presence  of  this  truth  of  life,  this  innermost 
of  all  good,  do  you  not  feel  that  all  questions  about 
the  limits  of  human  knowledge  or  differences  in 
doctrine  are  best  answered  by  being  ignored  ?  Is  it 
not  clear  that  all  teachers  of  truth  are  trying  to  say 
the  same  thing,  and  that  every  noble  life  has  suc- 
ceeded in  saying  it?  And  does  it  not  help  you  to 
know  this  ?  What  can  you  possibly  do  with  your 
life  to-day  that  has  not  been  done  a  thousand  times 
before  ?  What  pathway  can  you  tread  that  has  not 
been  trodden  by  all  the  sons  of  God  in  all  the  ages 


252         THE   SILENCE    OF    HEAVEN 

past?  And  what  meaning  can  there  have  been  in 
the  earthly  experience  of  the  greatest  of  saints  and 
seers,  or  even  of  Jesus  Himself,  which  is  not  in 
yours?  You  are  sometimes  tempted  to  think  that 
no  one  has  ever  had  to  live  just  such  a  life,  or  face 
just  such  a  situation,  as  yours  at  the  present  mo- 
ment. That  is  quite  a  natural  mistake  to  make ; 
every  man's  career  is  unique  and  interesting  to  him- 
self. But  the  truth  is  that  your  next-door  neigh- 
bour probably  knows  as  much  of  the  great  problem 
as  you  do.  You  are  not  in  the  least  original.  The 
external  details  of  your  career  may  be  such  as  never 
took  place  before,  but  the  use  you  are  called  upon 
to  make  of  your  being  is  precisely  that  of  all  the 
rest  of  your  fellow-men.  In  everything  that  comes 
your  way  you  can  do  one  of  two  things — you  can 
be  Christ  or  Pilate.  You  can  either  be  a  coward  or 
a  hero,  a  liar  or  a  messenger  of  truth,  a  weakling 
or  the  master  of  your  fate,  a  robber  of  the  race  or 
its  saviour.  Whether  at  home,  or  out  in  the  world, 
or  in  the  secret  of  your  own  heart,  you  are  always 
having  to  decide  between  the  lesser  and  the  larger 
self,  the  particular  and  the  universal,  the  world  and 
God.  It  will  sometimes  seem  as  though  you  are  so 
utterly  alone  in  the  decision  that  there  comes  not 
one  ray  of  help  and  comfort  out  of  the  unseen  to 
brighten  your  lot.  You  may  feel  as  if  prayer  were 
a  mockery,  and  everything  unreal  except  the  hell  of 
going  on  living.  You  may  ask  yourself  whether  the 
game  is  worth  the  candle,  and  why  you  should 
strive  to  preserve  ideals  and  rise  above  baseness  and 
foulness  in  your  treatment  of  mankind.  You  may 
passionately  protest  that  if  you  could  change  places 


THE   SILENCE   OF   HEAVEN         253 

with  God — supposing  that  there  is  a  God — you 
would  at  least  speak  the  one  word  that  the  pilgrim 
needs  most  when  the  night  is  darkest.  Well,  so 
you  would;  but  you  would  speak  it  as  God  speaks 
it — within  and  not  without  the  conquering  soul. 
That  still  small  voice  does  not  speak  its  last  and 
greatest  word  until  all  lesser  sounds  are  hushed, 
and  the  soul  has  taken  its  bravest  step  alone  and 
apparently  unaided.  That  is  the  moment  when 
angels  hold  their  breath,  as  it  were,  to  see  if  we  are 
equal  to  the  test.  The  voice  of  heaven  is  silent  for 
half-an-hour,  only  half-an-hour,  and  then  breaks  the 
song  of  jubilee. 


XVII 

THE   CRYSTAL  SEA 

"And  I  saw  as  it  were  a  sea  of  glass  mingled  with 
fire :  and  the7n  that  had  gotten  the  victory  over  the 
beast,  and  over  his  image,  and  over  his  7nark,  and  over 
the  nwnber  of  his  name,  stand  on  the  sea  of  glass, 
having  the  harps  of  God." — Rev.  xv.  2. 

It  is  no  easy  matter  to  undertake  to  interpret  the 
symbolism  of  the  book  of  Revelation,  for,  to  a 
great  extent,  it  must  necessarily  be  obscure  to  the 
modern  mind.  We  are  all  more  or  less  acquainted 
with  efforts  which  have  been  made  by  imperfectly 
educated  people  to  explain  the  prophecies  of  this 
strange  book  as  having  relation  to  events  which 
have  yet  to  take  place  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
Some  people  seem  to  find  a  great  fascination  in 
this  kind  of  exercise,  not  only  with  the  book  of 
Revelation,  but  with  the  various  other  books  of  the 
Bible,  especially  the  book  of  Daniel.  I  can  well 
remember  when  I  was  a  child  reading  that  the 
"  little  horn  "  of  the  book  of  Daniel  was,  I  think, 
the  Prince  Imperial,  according  to  the  detailed  ex- 
j)lanation  given  by  the  editor  of  a  certain  religious 
periodical ;  and  one  was  quite  interested  the  other 
day  to  find  that,  now  the  poor  Prince  Imperial  is 
dead,  the  little  horn  has  become  somebody  else. 
I  should  not  be  greatly  surprised  to  discover  that 

254 


THE    CRYSTAL   SEA  255 

there  are  people  present  in  the  congregation  this 
morning  who  have  been  instructed  that  the  ''  Scarlet 
Woman  "  of  Revelation  is  the  Church  of  Rome. 
Whatever  else  it  was  it  never  was  that.     But  the 
great  majority  of  my  hearers  will  know  quite  well 
that  all  this  kind  of  theorising  is  beside  the  mark 
and  out  of  place.     The  man  who  wrote  this  book 
of   Revelation — or,    rather,    the   man    who   put   it 
together,  for  it  is  a  composite  work — was  writing 
for  a  constituency  which  well  understood  the  sym- 
bolism he  employed;    but  w^e  do  not,  except  to  a 
comparatively  limited  degree.     This  man  was  writ- 
ing about  his  own  times,  not  about  ours.     He  had 
in  mind  the  coming  overthrow  of  the  world-wide 
Roman   Empire,   and  the  establishment  of  some- 
thing entirely  new  in  its  place.     He  never  foresaw 
the    Europe   and    America   of    to-day,    and    never 
dreamed  that  militarism,   struggle,   and  suffering 
would  last  so  long  as  they  have  done.     He  was 
looking  for  a  grand  dramatic  wind-up  of  the  exist- 
ing order  of  things  and  the  conquest  of  earth  by 
the   hosts   of   heaven.     This,    remember,    was   the 
writer's  point  of  view,  a  point  of  view  from  which 
he  never  departs  for  a  moment.     All  the  symbol- 
ism he  uses,  and  which  was  quite  familiar  to  the 
people  for  whom  he  wrote,   is  meant  to  illustrate 
this  point  of  view.     Sometimes  we  know  what  the 
symbolism   means  and  sometimes  we  do  not.     If 
we  only   knew   the  everyday  conversation   of  the 
Jews  of  the  Dispersion  for  whom  this  book  was 
written  it  would  contain  no  obscurities  for  us;  but, 
unfortunately,  we  do  not.     We  only  know  a  part 
of  it;   and  even  the  most  eminent  New  Testament 


256  THE    CRYSTAL   SEA 

scholars  are  obliged  to  confess,  therefore,  that  some 
of  the  allusions  in  this  book  must  for  the  present 
remain  a  mystery. 

But  I  do  not  think  this  observation  applies  to  the 
remarkable  expression  which  we  have  chosen  as 
our  text  this  morning — **  a  sea  of  glass  (or  a  glassy 
sea)  mingled  with  fire."  The  figure  is  a  striking 
one,  and  we  are  not  without  guidance  as  to  its 
spiritual  meaning.  In  a  modified  form  the  phrase 
appears  first  in  the  fourth  chapter,  wherein  the 
writer  describes  himself  as  taken  up  in  spirit  into 
Heaven  and  gazing  upon  the  throne  of  God.  The 
imagery  of  this  part  of  the  book  is  mostly  borrowed 
from  that  of  Ezekiel,  and  is  marvellously  rich  and 
suggestive,  albeit  restrained  and  reverent.  The 
nearest  approach  he  makes  to  a  description  of  the 
Almighty  Himself  is  to  say:  "Behold,  a  throne 
was  set  in  heaven,  and  one  sat  on  the  throne.  And 
He  that  sat  was  to  look  upon  like  a  jasper  and  a 
sardine  stone."  In  Chapter  xxi,  we  are  twice  told 
that  the  jasper  stone  was  "  clear  as  crystal."  The 
sardine  stone  was  fiery  red.  He  then  proceeds  to 
tell  us  that  before  the  throne  there  was  "  a  glassy 
sea  like  unto  crystal."  He  returns  to  this  figure 
in  our  text,  and  tells  us  that  this  glassy  sea  which 
spread  before  the  throne  of  God  was  shot  with 
flame,  and  that  around  it  stood  a  host  of  those  who 
had  come  victorious  out  of  the  conflicts  of  earth, 
singing  the  song  of  Moses  and  the  Lamb. 

Now,  here  is  ample  material  for  a  lengthy  dis- 
cussion of  our  theme  if  we  were  to  enter  upon  it  in 
all  its  details.  But  all  I  want  is  to  show  that  this 
man  was  thinking  of  something  great  and  good, 


THE    CRYSTAL   SEA  257 

and  that  the  language  he  uses  is  quite  in  accord- 
ance with  his  theme,  although  we  should  use  differ- 
ent language  now-a-days.  You  cannot  fail  to 
observe  that  he  speaks  of  God  as  possessing  the 
same  attributes  as  the  glassy  sea  which  surrounds 
His  throne.  He  speaks  of  the  nature  of  God  as 
crystal-clear  and  yet  as  filled  with  fire.  I  think  I 
can  see  what  he  means.  "  God  is  light,  and  in 
Him  is  no  darkness  at  all."  But  He  is  also  love, 
the  burning  flame  that  is  never  quenched  and  in 
whose  embrace  all  foulness  and  corruption  are  de- 
stroyed. The  sea  before  the  throne  is  the  truth 
about  God,  and  about  all  being,  made  manifest  to 
those  who  are  worthy  to  behold  it  with  unclouded 
vision.  The  sea  is  the  emblem  of  mystery  in  most 
of  the  apocalyptic  writings.  Here  we  are  told  that 
the  mystery  which  surrounds  the  being  of  God  is 
no  longer  mystery  to  those  who  are  worthy  to  see 
Him  as  He  is.  It  is  infinite,  but  there  is  no  part 
dark.  It  is  crystal-clear  with  the  light  of  truth, 
and  mingled  with  the  flame  of  eternal  love  that 
streams  from  the  throne  itself.  The  glassy  sea  is 
thus  a  beautiful  figure  for  the  perfect  revelation  of 
the  glory  and  the  grace  of  God, 

Who,  then,  are  these  who  stand  upon  the  glassy 
sea  and  behold  with  unveiled  face  the  beatific 
vision  ?  The  writer  tells  us  that  they  were  the 
people  who  had  conquered  the  beast.  By  the  beast 
I  have  no  doubt  he  meant  the  infamous  Nero,  under 
whose  orders  one  of  the  fiercest  and  cruellest  per- 
secutions of  the  Christians  took  place.  You  will 
not  need  to  be  reminded  that  at  the  time  of  which 
this  chapter  treats  Nero  had  illuminated  his  palace 
17 


258  THE    CRYSTAL    SEA 

gardens  on  a  festival  occasion  with  the  bodies  of 
burning  Christians,  who  had  been  covered  with 
pitch  before  they  were  set  on  fire.  This  must  have 
been  a  terrible  time  for  the  followers  of  Jesus,  and 
would  test  their  fidelity  to  the  uttermost.  We  are 
here  told  that  those  who  had  come  off  victorious  in 
this  conflict  with  the  worst  that  the  world  could  do 
were  privileged  to  behold  the  truth  as  it  really  is, 
and  to  gaze,  as  it  were,  upon  the  very  face  of  Him 
who  is  eternal  light  and  love.  "Therefore  are 
they  before  the  throne  of  God,  and  serve  Him  day 
and  night  in  His  temple;  and  He  that  sitteth  on 
the  throne  shall  spread  His  tabernacle  over  them. 
They  shall  hunger  no  more,  neither  thirst  any 
more;  neither  shall  the  sun  strike  upon  them  nor 
any  heat.  For  the  Lamb  which  is  in  the  midst  of 
the  throne  shall  be  their  shepherd,  and  shall  guide 
them  unto  fountains  of  waters  of  life;  and  God 
shall  wipe  away  every  tear  from  their  eyes." 

Here  is  the  point  at  which  I  feel  we  can  legiti- 
mately begin  to  think  of  this  remarkable  passage  as 
applicable  to  ourselves.  We  may  put  the  matter 
thus  :  The  one  great  object  of  all  spiritual  aspira- 
tion and  achievement  is  to  stand  before  that  crystal 
sea  which  is  illumined  with  the  fire  of  God.  We 
may  not  always  put  it  to  ourselves  this  way,  but 
this  is  what  we  want.  We  want  to  know;  we  want 
to  see;  we  want  to  be  at  one  with  God;  we  want 
to  worship  in  the  radiant  presence  of  the  infinite 
ocean  of  love  divine.  I  believe  all  men  are  more 
or  less  conscious  of  this  longing,  but  there  are 
some  natures  in  whom  it  amounts  to  an  all-absorb- 
ing passion.     These  are  the  material  out  of  which 


THE    CRYSTAL   SEA  259 

saints  and  mystics  are  made.  There  are  human 
beings  to  whom  life  only  seems  to  spell  one  word, 
and  that  w^ord  is  God.  They  see  everything  in 
relation  to  God,  and  without  God  life  would  cease 
to  have  meaning.  Thus  John  Henry  Newman 
tells  us  that  even  when  he  was  a  child  there  were 
to  him  only  two  luminous  self-evident  realities  over 
against  each  other,  God  and  his  own  soul.  The 
ordinary  man  does  not  feel  like  this,  but  there  are 
times  which  come  to  all  of  us  when  we  feel  an  inde- 
scribable yearning  to  break  through  the  trammels 
which  surround  us,  and  understand  life  as  it  really 
is.  In  our  best  moments  we  all  want  to  pierce  the 
veil  of  mystery  that  hides  from  us  the  Great  Be- 
yond, and  not  only  so,  but  to  attain  to  that  ineffable 
something  which  is  neither  near  nor  far,  and  to 
which  we  really  belong.  Have  you  never  had  this 
haunting  call  from  the  infinite  ?  I  am  sure  you 
have.  You  have  had  it  when  you  did  not  know 
what  you  wanted,  just  like  the  little  child  who, 
when  asked  why  she  was  crying,  replied  that  it 
was  because  she  wanted  something  she  did  not 
know  the  name  of.  We  all  want  that  same  some- 
thing to  which  we  cannot  give  a  name. 

Like  tides  on  a  desert  sea-beach 

When  the  moon  is  low  and  thin, 
Into  our  hearts  high  yearnings 

Come  welling  and  surging  in  ; 
Come  from  the  mystic  ocean, 

Whose  rim  no  foot  hath  trod ; 
Some  of  us  call  it  longing 

And  others  call  it  God. 

It  is  almost  useless  to  try  to  describe  what  I  mean, 
for  we  all  know  and  yet  we  don't  know.     We  want 


26o  THE    CRYSTAL    SEA 

the  life  that  is  death — death  to  self-interest,  self- 
pity,  self-regard.  We  want  to  escape  from  the 
imprisonment  of  self  into  the  region  where  the  self 
becomes  all  and  there  is  nothing  beyond.  We 
want  to  lose  ourselves  so  completely  in  that  one 
eternal  life  that  there  shall  no  longer  be  any  ques- 
tion of  me  and  thee.  We  want  to  reach  the  good 
beyond  the  good;  the  right  within  the  right;  the 
truth  of  which  truth  is  but  the  shadow.  We  want 
to  be  lifted  out  of  the  tossing  sea  of  human  passion 
into  the  eternal  calm  where  knowledge  and  achieve- 
ment are  one.  We  want  that  rest  and  blessedness 
in  which  the  undertone  of  joy  is  sacrifice  and  sacri- 
fice is  liberty.  We  want — oh,  how  much  we  want ! 
— to  love  without  fear  of  losing,  and  to  worship 
without  ceasing  that  which  is  the  living  God  re- 
flected in  our  own  being — our  very  existence  being 
the  homage  we  render  to  That  which  is  the  source 
and  sustenance  of  all. 

It  is  no  use  saying  you  do  not  want  this.  You 
do;  we  all  do.  It  is  what  the  greedy  man  wants 
when  he  goes  out  to  gather  gold ;  he  does  not  want 
the  gold,  but  that  of  which  the  gold  is  the  symbol, 
the  something  for  which  his  soul  is  craving  and 
will  not  be  denied,  even  though  he  is  seeking  it  in 
a  wrong  way.  It  is  what  the  bad  man  wants  when 
he  spreads  havoc  and  ruin  in  the  path  of  his  am- 
bition or  his  lust;  he  is  looking  for  heaven  in  the 
vaults  of  hell.  It  is  what  is  driving  every  one  of 
you  to  hope  and  fear,  to  toil  and  rest,  to  lonely 
introspection  and  the  joy  of  human  fellowship  and 
love.  It  is  the  pang  in  sorrow;  the  loss  in  grief; 
the  lowest  note  in  failure  and  the  highest  in  sue- 


THE    CRYSTAL   SEA  261 

cess.  If  you  do  not  know  this  you  do  not  know 
yourselves.  You  are  so  constituted  that  you  can 
never  stop  seeking  until  you  have  found  the  eternal 
calm  of  the  perfect  vision  of  God.  If  you  try  to 
rest  in  anything  less  you  will  be  spurred  on  again 
by  your  own  soul  and  swept  upward  from  height 
to  height  until  you  enter  upon  the  Great  Peace  on 
the  shores  of  the  crystal  sea. 

But  how  can  we  attain  this  object?  What  is  the 
nearest  way  home,  so  to  speak  ?  There  is  but  one 
answer,  and  that  has  been  given  by  every  noble  life 
that  was  ever  lived  since  the  world  began.  If  we 
would  attain  to  the  life  eternal  we  must  be  content 
to  climb  the  steep  and  winding  path  that  leads 
from  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  to  the  ever- 
lasting heights  of  that  perfect  knowledge  which  is 
perfect  love.  We  have  to  become  what  we  seek. 
We  shall  never  enter  upon  the  realisation  of  any 
good  which  is  external  to  ourselves.  Knowing  is 
being,  and  apart  from  being  there  is  no  knowing 
in  the  things  of  God.  But  being  and  knowing 
both  imply  doing.  Every  aspiration  of  the  soul 
Godward  implies  a  corresponding  activity  man- 
ward.  Only  those  can  stand  before  the  glassy  sea 
and  enter  upon  the  beatific  vision  who  have  come 
off  victorious  in  the  conflict  with  the  beast,  and 
that  means  waging  war  with  all  that  is  foul  and 
degrading  in  the  experience  of  humanity  as  a 
whole.  In  one  of  Olive  Schreiner's  beautiful 
mystical  sketches  in  the  little  book  called  Dreams 
there  is  a  vivid  figurative  description  of  the  vision 
granted  to  an  aspirant  who  had  come  to  the  border- 
land of  heaven,   and  saw  before  him  a  gigantic 


262  THE    CRYSTAL   SEA 

divine  figure,  the  ideal  humanity,  which  was  neither 
male  nor  female,  but  the  express  image  or  reflection 
of  God  Himself.  In  response  to  the  prayer  of  the 
aspirant  to  be  permitted  to  stay  there  and  gaze 
upon  this  ideal  spiritual  fulfilment  of  all  the  hopes 
and  struggles  of  earth,  God's  answer  was  to  point 
down  to  the  world  he  had  left,  the  world  of  blind- 
ness, mourning,  and  woe.  "All  you  seek  is 
there,"  He  said.  And  so  indeed  it  is.  There  is 
no  kind  of  spiritual  aspiration  which  has  not  its 
equivalent  in  holy  desire  to  free  humanity  from  its 
burdens  and  destroy  the  sense  of  separateness  which 
is  the  root  cause  of  cruelty  and  wrong.  No  man 
shall  ever  behold  the  glassy  sea  who  does  not  from 
that  altitude  realise  all  mankind  as  his  very  self. 
The  measure  of  his  upward  rise  is  just  the  measure 
of  his  downward  plunge  to  the  rescue  of  imprisoned 
souls.  The  clearer  his  vision  of  the  crystal  sea, 
the  brighter  glows  the  fire  in  the  midst  of  it.  There 
is  no  truth  that  is  not  love. 

Have  you  never  felt  that  you  would  give  all  you 
possess  just  to  know  what  is  behind  the  veil  and 
what  this  bewildering  life  of  ours  really  means  ?  I 
am  sure  you  have.  And  there  are  times  when  the 
silence  seems  almost  intolerable.  It  humbles  our 
pride  to  think  that  with  all  our  boasted  advance  in 
civilisation  and  power  over  nature  we  know  no 
more  about  what  lies  on  the  other  side  of  death 
than  men  knew  6,000  years  ago.  There  are  many 
who  profess  to  have  received  authentic  communica- 
tions from  their  departed  friends,  but  if  so  the 
testimony  that  filters  through  in  this  way  is  so 
vague  and  uncertain,  as  well  as  inconsistent,  that 
it  cannot  command  general  acceptance. 


THE    CRYSTAL   SEA  263 

Strange,  is  it  not,  that  of  the  myriads  who 

Before  us  passed  the  door  of  darkness  through, 

Not  one  returns  to  tell  us  of  the  road 
Which,  to  discover,  we  must  travel  too  ? 

No,  if  we  have  to  rely  on  this  kind  of  external 
evidence  the  universe  must  remain  as  great  a 
mystery  as  ever.  But  there  is  one  kind  of  evidence 
concerning  which  the  highest  witness  never 
changes.  It  is  that  the  way  to  blessedness  is  the 
path  of  self-renunciation.  Let  a  man  determine  so 
to  live  that  his  life  is  one  long  denial  of  the  lower, 
one  long  affirmation  of  the  higher,  and  in  the  end 
he  comes  to  know  that  there  is  neither  death  nor 
separation,  and  no  life  but  the  knowledge  of  God. 
The  change  from  one  body  to  another  is  a  small 
thing;  the  ascent  from  the  brute  to  the  god  is 
always  by  the  same  pathway,  the  pathway  of  self- 
giving  in  the  service  of  the  common  life.  "  No 
new  commandment  write  I  unto  you,  but  an  old 
commandment  which  ye  heard  from  the  begin- 
ning." Life  is  one  and  indivisible.  Act  as  if  it 
were  so,  and  as  though  your  individuality  had  no 
meaning  apart  from  the  whole,  and  you  will  come 
to  see  that  this  is  the  truth,  the  truth  which  is  love 
— "a  sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire"  spreading 
around  the  throne  of  God. 

So  when  the  heart  cries  out  for  God,  go  and 
staunch  the  bleeding  wounds  of  man.  When  you 
see  a  human  being  wretched  and  degraded,  say  to 
yourself :  *'  There  am  L"  When  you  hear  the  cry 
of  want  and  misery  breaking  from  the  hearts  of  the 
children  of  despair,  recognise  the  cry  of  your  own 
soul.  When  your  own  heart  is  aching  for  sym- 
pathy and  understanding,  when  you  feel  your  lone- 


264  THE    CRYSTAL    SEA 

liness  the  most,  pour  forth  the  balm  of  divine  heal- 
ing to  another's  need  and  you  shall  find  that  it  has 
satisfied  your  own.  When  you  are  tempted  to 
think  of  your  own  good  as  apart  from  that  of  your 
fellow,  or  to  snatch  at  a  gain  that  means  his  loss, 
remember  that  you  are  being  deceived  by  the  lie  of 
the  serpent  in  Eden,  the  lie  that  there  can  be  any 
good  which  cleaves  a  gulf  between  man  and  man, 
or  man  and  God.  When  you  find  yourself  indiffer- 
ent to  the  call  of  the  right  against  the  wrong,  or 
the  cause  of  the  weak  against  the  strong,  lift  up 
your  eyes  to  the  throne  in  the  midst  of  which  is 
the  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world. 
Understand  that  that  throne  is  here  now;  here  is 
infinity;  here  is  eternity,  waiting  for  you  to  enter 
upon  your  heritage.  When  you  see  men  in  danger 
of  forgetting  who  and  what  they  are,  the  offspring 
of  the  Most  High,  take  care  to  remember  it  for 
them  by  living  it  yourself  in  their  presence.  Suffer 
no  deed  of  hate  to  pass  unchecked  the  portals  of 
your  being.  Let  no  lie  pollute  your  soul.  How- 
ever strong  may  seem  the  earthly  and  devilish 
forces  in  humanity  as  you  know  it,  be  not  over- 
come of  evil  but  overcome  evil  with  good.  Tell 
despondency  it  bears  the  mark  of  the  beast  and  that 
you  refuse  to  wear  it.  Say  the  same  to  moral 
cowardice  and  cupidity.  Never  be  content  merely 
with  repelling  the  attacks  of  evil  upon  the  fragile 
good  you  keep  locked  up  within  your  own  heart 
and  conscience ;  out  upon  the  enemy.  Become  the 
assailant,  and  drive  him  from  his  fastnesses  in 
human  hearts  and  lives.  It  is  never  safe  for  a  child 
of  God  to  be  content  with  maintaining  his  footing. 


THE    CRYSTAL   SEA  265 

or  standing  siege  in  the  war  between  heaven  and 
hell ;  he  must  hurl  himself  with  divine  courage  and 
faith  upon  the  ranks  of  evil,  and  break  and  destroy 
them  in  the  name  of  the  Lord.  There  is  no  human 
need  that  is  not  yours,  and  no  spiritual  achieve- 
ment in  w^hich  you  have  not  an  immediate  concern. 
To  follow  Jesus  to  the  highest  of  all ;  to  be  privi- 
leged to  gaze  upon  that  infinite  crystal  sea,  the 
manifested  light  and  love  of  God,  you  will  have 
to  take  upon  yourself  the  whole  burden  of  the  sins 
and  suffering  of  mankind,  for  they  are  your  very 
own.  You  cannot  avoid  them  without  choosing 
the  outer  darkness ;  you  cannot  assume  them  with- 
out rising  into  the  eternal  light.  This  is  daring 
language,  but  my  text  justifies  it.  *'  A  sea  of  glass 
mingled  with  fire!"  Oh,  eternal  calm,  far,  far 
above  our  feeble  range  of  sight,  yet  deep  within 
our  souls  even  now  !  When  shall  we  behold  that 
glorious  expanse  in  which  all  being  is  included  and 
fulfilled  ?  When  ?  Only  when  w^e  ourselves  be- 
come the  perfectly  manifested  light  and  love  of 
God,  and  eternally  at  one  with  Him  and  with  all 
that  is  made  in  His  image  and  likeness.  This  alone 
is  real ;  all  else  is  but  seeming.  There  is  nothing 
beyond  the  crystal  sea. 


XVIII 

THE   HOLY   CITY   AND   ITS   TEMPLE 

"  A^id  I  saw  no  temple  therein;  for  the  Lord  God 
Almighty  and  the  Lamb  are  the  temple  of  itP — Rev, 
xxi.  22. 

We  have  so  frequently  discussed  together  the 
symbolism  of  the  book  of  Revelation  that  there  will 
be  no  need  to  remind  you  that  every  sentence  in  this 
marvellous  chapter  has  a  figurative  significance  and 
stands  for  some  spiritual  reality.  Still,  it  is  pos- 
sible there  may  be  some  here  who  have  not  yet 
grasped  the  basal  idea  upon  which  the  writer  raises 
this  beautiful  structure  of  thought  and  feeling.  You 
are  all  familiar  with  the  opening  sentences  :  ''  And 
I  saw  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  for  the  first 
heaven  and  the  first  earth  were  passed  away,  and 
there  was  no  more  sea.  And  I  saw  the  Holy  City, 
New  Jerusalem,  coming  down  from  God  out  of 
heaven,  prepared  as  a  bride  adorned  for  her  hus- 
band." All  the  rest  of  the  chapter  is  a  description 
of  this  glorious  city  in  which  God  is  to  dwell  with 
His  people,  and  there  is  to  be  no  more  death,  nor 
sorrow,  nor  crying,  nor  any  more  pain.  But  what 
does  the  writer  mean  by  this  city?  Where  is  it  to 
be,  and  who  will  inherit  it  ?  I  dare  say  there  may 
be  some  of  you  who  think  of  it  as  heaven,  the  heaven 
to  which  we  hope  to  go  when  we  die.     We  sing 

266 


THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMPLE     267 

hymns  about  it  in  which  this  view  is  taken  for 
granted,  and  the  very  imagery  of  this  chapter  is 
employed  to  illustrate  the  theme.  In  that  section  of 
the  Congregational  hymn-book  headed,  "  The  final 
glory  of  heaven,"  there  are  quite  a  number  of  beauti- 
ful hymns  in  which  this  belief  is  asserted.     Thus  : 

Jerusalem,  my  happy  home, 

Name  ever  dear  to  me  ; 
When  shall  my  labours  have  an  end 

In  joy  and  peace  in  thee? 

When  shall  these  eyes  thy  heaven-built  walls 

And  pearly  gates  behold, 
Thy  bulwarks  with  salvation  strong, 

And  streets  of  shining  gold? 

Here,  you  see,  is  the  very  language  of  the  twenty- 
first  chapter  of  Revelation  ;  and  it  fully  accords  with 
many  of  our  most  familiar  conceptions.  The  New 
Jerusalem  is  for  most  of  us  the  glorious  home  which 
waits  for  us  beyond  the  river  of  death. 

But  the  moment  we  begin  to  look  into  the  subject 
we  see  that  this  could  not  be  precisely  what  the 
writer  of  this  chapter  was  thinking  about.  He  says 
he  saw  this  city  coming  down  out  of  heaven.  Evi- 
dently then  it  was  not  heaven  ;  so  the  walls  of  jasper 
and  the  golden  streets  must  have  some  other  sig- 
nificance. On  the  other  hand,  he  says  there  is  to 
be  no  more  death,  and  he  goes  on  to  declare  that 
there  will  be  no  need  of  the  sun  to  shine  in  the 
glorious  city,  and  that  there  will  be  no  night  there. 
What  in  the  world  is  he  talking  about  ?  This  city 
is  quite  unlike  anything  we  have  ever  heard  or  read 
about  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  No  death,  so  sun, 
no  moon  !     If  this  city  is  not  heaven,  neither  is  it 


268    THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMPLE 

earth,  for  its  establishment  seems  to  imply  a  com- 
plete transformation  of  the  world  as  we  know  it  now. 
Well,  that  is  just  the  explanation.  According  to 
this  writer  everything  is  going  to  be  transformed. 
He  speaks  of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth.  At 
present  heaven  and  earth  are  quite  separate  states  of 
existence,  but  in  the  new  city  of  God  of  which  this 
man  dreams  they  are  no  longer  to  be  two  but  one.  I 
could  quite  understand  it  if  some  of  you  were  to  say 
that  you  have  no  patience  to  listen  to  such  ravings ; 
but  they  are  not  so  absurd  as  they  appear  to  be.  Let 
us  try  to  understand  before,  we  criticise.  To  tell 
you  the  truth,  I  have  a  good  deal  of  sympathy  with 
this  unknown  writer's  view  of  things.  I  believe  that 
the  veil  between  seen  and  unseen  is  a  very  flimsy 
one,  and  that  this  seemingly  solid  matter  which 
forms  our  prison-house  is  not  so  very  solid  after  all. 
Probably  it  is  nothing  more  than  our  own  thought 
exercised  upon  a  very  limited  plane.  It  is  quite 
conceivable  that  we  might  wake  up,  as  it  were,  from 
a  sleep,  and  realise  that  there  never  has  been  a 
material  and  a  spiritual,  but  that  we  have  all  the 
time  been  living  at  the  very  centre  of  reality,  only 
we  did  not  know  it.  This  is  what  the  writer  is  sug- 
gesting anyhow.  He  thinks  if  men  were  only  good 
enough,  and  ready  for  the  change,  the  veil  betw^een 
heaven  and  earth  would  be  taken  away,  and  the  two 
would  be  seen  to  be  one.  That  is  what  he  means 
by  the  city  coming  down ;  it  is  heaven  taking  posses- 
sion of  earth  and  absorbing  it  into  itself.  In  paint- 
ing this  picture  he  goes  a  good  deal  farther  than 
most  of  his  contemporaries  were  capable  of  doing. 
Patriotic  Jews  had  long  been  looking  for  the  city  of 


THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMPLE     269 

God  on  earth,  but  they  meant  their  own  beloved 
Jerusalem,  the  very  Jerusalem  which  Cook's  person- 
ally conducted  tours  give  so  many  of  us  the  oppor- 
tunity of  visiting  at  the  present  day.  From  the 
reports  which  travellers  bring  back  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  that  squalid-looking  mud  village  is  any- 
thing but  a  model  for  the  city  of  God  so  gorgeously 
portrayed  in  this  chapter.  But  its  condition  was 
even  worse  at  the  moment  when  this  chapter  was 
written.  It  had  just  been  destroyed  by  the  Romans, 
and  lay  a  smoking  ruin.  The  Temple  of  which  the 
Jews  had  been  so  proud,  with  its  marble  walls  and 
golden  domes,  had  been  given  to  the  flames,  and  all 
the  sacred  vessels  carried  ofif  by  the  Roman  army. 

It  is  difficult  for  us  to  realise  now  what  a  terrible 
blow  this  must  have  been  to  Jewish  national  hopes. 
For  generations  they  had  been  looking  forward  to 
the  coming  of  an  ideal  social  order,  the  kingdom 
of  God,  in  which  their  Jerusalem  should  be  the 
capital  of  the  whole  earth,  and  their  Temple  the 
centre  of  the  world's  worship.  Their  city  was  to  be 
at  once  the  political  and  the  spiritual  focus  of  all  the 
interests  of  mankind.  They  seem  to  have  believed 
this  with  all  their  hearts,  and  to  have  gone  on  ex- 
pecting to  see  it  realised  as  an  actual  fact.  Take, 
for  example,  the  following  from  Isaiah  Ix. — 

"Arise,  shine;  for  thy  light  is  come,  and  the 
glory  of  the  Lord  is  risen  upon  thee.  .  .  .  Therefore 
thy  gates  shall  be  open  continually ;  they  shall  not 
be  shut  day  nor  night;  that  men  may  bring  unto 
thee  the  forces  of  the  Gentiles,  and  that  their  kings 
may  be  brought.  .  .  .  The  sons  also  of  them  that 
afflicted  thee  shall  come  bending  unto  thee;  and  all 


270    THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMPLE 

they  that  despised  thee  shall  bow  themselves  down 
at  the  soles  of  thy  feet;  and  they  shall  call  thee 
the  city  of  the  Lord,  the  Zion  of  the  Holy  One  of 
Israel.  .  .  .  The  sun  shall  be  no  more  thy  light  by 
day;  neither  for  brightness  shall  the  moon  give 
light  unto  thee;  but  the  Lord  shall  be  unto  thee 
an  everlasting  light,  and  thy  God  thy  glory." 

It  is  plain  to  be  seen  that  this  was  intended  as 
foretelling  great  prosperity  for  Jerusalem,  a  kind  of 
universal  dominion.  The  reference  to  the  sun  and 
moon  is  a  figure  for  the  material  splendour  which 
is  to  be  hers  in  the  day  of  her  triumph  over  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth. 

If  now  you  turn  to  the  book  of  Ezekiel  you  will 
find  an  even  more  elaborate  description  of  the  city 
of  God,  including  a  colossal  Temple.  Here  we 
have  the  original  of  some  of  the  language  used  in 
this  chapter  about  the  gates  and  the  walls.  Ezekiel 
really  means  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem  which  was 
then  waiting  to  be  rebuilt,  but  his  references  to  the 
water  of  life  which  proceeds  out  of  that  Temple  show 
that  he  thought  of  it  as  a  centre  of  blessing  for  the 
whole  world.  He  could  not  think  of  Jerusalem 
without  the  Temple,  and  he  could  not  think  of  the 
Temple  without  believing  that  it  would  be  the  shrine 
of  a  universal  religion  in  which  all  nations  should 
worship  Israel's  God.  This  vision  of  his  seems  all 
the  grander  when  we  remember  that  he  elaborated 
it  at  a  time  when  he  himself  was  a  prisoner  in  a 
strange  land,  and  that  all  the  Jewish  people  were 
the  subjects  of  mighty  Babylon.  That  was  six 
centuries  before  Christ  w^as  born.  What  had  hap- 
pened in  the  mean  time?    The  Jews  were  back  in 


THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMPLE     271 

their  own   land,    but  they  were  still  subject  to  a 
foreign  power.     King  Herod  had  built  them  a  more 
magnificent  Temple  than  had  ever  stood  on  Zion's 
hill  before.     How  they  loved  to  read  the  words  of 
Ezekiel  and  the  second  Isaiah  about  the  all-dominat- 
ing place  which  their  city  and  their  Temple  would 
come  to  occupy  amidst  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  ! 
I  am  afraid  they  mostly  lost  sight  of  the  spiritual 
ideal  in  their  anxiety  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  mate- 
rial.    Then  the  crash  came.     The  soldiers  of  the 
Emperor  Titus  destroyed  both  city  and  Temple,  and 
they  have  never  been  rebuilt.     That  ancient  dream 
was  at  an  end;  the  Jewish  people  had  no  longer  a 
home;  henceforth  they  were  wanderers  on  the  face 
of  the  earth.    To-day  one  of  the  most  pathetic  sights 
in  the  world  is  the  Jews'  wailing  place,  as  it  is  called, 
w^here,    behind    the    gigantic    stones    which    once 
formed  a  corner  of  their  old  Temple  buildings,  pil- 
grim Jews  stand  to  weep  and  lament  over  the  de- 
struction of  their  ancient  kingdom,  and  the  shatter- 
ing of  all  their  hopes.    With  Jerusalem  in  ruins  and 
in  the  hands  of  the  foreigner,  with  a  Mohammedan 
mosque  standing  on  the  site  of  the  Temple  itself, 
what  has  become  of  the  dream  of  a  city  of  God  ? 

Here  is  v/here  the  grandeur  of  this  vision  of  the 
writer  of  Revelation  comes  in.  He  sees  that  even 
if  the  earthly  Jerusalem  cannot  rise  again,  its 
heavenly  counterpart  can  come  down.  If  there  is 
to  be  no  material  splendour  there  can  be  a  spiritual 
victory  and  a  reign  of  truth.  This  will  have  no 
more  to  do  with  the  Jews  than  with  any  other 
people.  He  actually  takes  up  the  language  of  Isaiah 
and  Ezekiel  and  gives  it  a  universal  and  wholly 


272     THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMPLE 

spiritual  significance.  The  world  is  to  be  won  for 
God ;  there  is  to  be  an  ideal  human  society  on  earth  ; 
in  the  end  earth  will  become  heaven.  He  believed, 
like  all  the  early  Christians,  that  death  would  be 
abolished  with  the  passing  of  sin  and  sorrow. 
When  he  used  the  language  of  Isaiah  about  the 
city  needing  no  light  of  the  sun  he  meant  it  in  an 
even  grander  way.  Henceforth  God  in  Christ  was 
to  be  the  light  of  every  man's  life,  all  the  nations 
were  to  walk  in  that  light,  and  love  and  brotherhood 
be  all  in  all.  But  he  makes  a  bold  stroke  at  this 
point  by  departing  from  Ezekiel's  dream  of  the 
Jewish  Temple.  He  says  that  God  Himself  will  be 
the  Temple,  and  men  shall  worship  Him  in  spirit 
and  in  truth.  Looking  back,  as  it  were,  upon  the 
desecration  and  destruction  which  had  fallen  upon 
the  Temple  that  was  formerly  the  pride  and  glory 
of  Israel,  he  says  in  effect :  Well,  let  it  go.  At  the 
best  it  was  only  a  beautiful  symbol  for  a  still  more 
beautiful  reality.  Nothing  is  lost  by  the  ruin  of  that 
which  was  built  with  hands.  God  Himself  is  our 
Temple — God  in  Christ.  We  need  no  other.  The 
whole  earth  is  full  of  His  glory,  and  in  Him  we 
live  and  move  and  have  our  being.  This  is  the  real 
significance  of  this  passage.  It  is  a  reassuring  refer- 
ence to  Ezekiel's  elaborate  vision  of  the  place  which 
the  Temple  was  to  fill  in  the  reverence  of  mankind. 
It  was  written  to  comfort  and  inspire  those  who  felt 
that  the  loss  of  the  Temple  meant  the  loss  of  every- 
thing great  and  good.  Not  so,  he  declared.  The 
loss  of  the  Temple  is  no  more  the  loss  of  religion 
than  the  death  of  the  body  is  the  end  of  the  man. 
On  the  contrary,  by  destroying  the  outward  it  throws 


THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMPLE     273 

us  back  upon  the  inward;  it  removes  the  local  and 
temporary  to  fix  our  gaze  upon  the  universal  and 
eternal.  This  was  a  wonderful  and  inspiring  con- 
ception, and  must  have  done  a  great  deal  in  that 
time  of  new  beginnings  and  fierce  persecutions  to 
lift  men's  thoughts  above  the  merely  material  and 
mundane.  The  further  we  get  back  into  Christian 
history  the  more  we  realise  how  intense  w^as  the  ex- 
pectation of  the  primitive  Church  that  Christ  would 
speedily  establish  His  kingdom  upon  earth,  and 
that  all  evil  would  be  at  an  end.  But  you  know  also 
that  as  time  went  on  their  thoughts  on  this  subject 
began  to  change.  Christ  did  not  come  on  the  clouds 
of  heaven ;  evil  was  not  cast  out ;  death  went  on 
claiming  his  victims;  sorrow  and  broken  hearts 
w^ere  still  to  be  found  in  abundance.  Then  came  the 
break-up  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  the  beginnings 
of  a  new  order.  The  Christian  Church  w^as  the 
cradk  ,of  this  hew  order,  and  became  the  most 
powerful  organisation  on  earth.  The  new  Europe 
began  to  look  on  the  Church  much  as  the  old  Jews 
had  looked  on  the  Temple.  This  was  the  City  of 
God ;  this  was  the  ark  of  salvation ;  this  was  the 
guarantee  of  deliverance  from  wTath  in  a  world  to 
come ;  this  was  the  very  body  of  Christ,  and  all  its 
officers — from  the  Pope  down  to  the  humblest  priest 
— were  his  appointed  representatives.  For  a  thou- 
sand years  this  theory  went  almost  unquestioned. 
Proud,  strong,  and  imposing  was  the  mighty  fabric 
of  the  Church.  It  was  all  that  the  old  Jewish  hier- 
archy had  been  and  vastly  more ;  it  ruled  the  world, 
and  claimed  jurisdiction  over  men's  bodies  and 
souls.  It  is  hard  for  us  now  to  realise  that  such 
18 


274    THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMPLE 

pretensions  ever  existed  or  could  be  enforced  over 
nations  as  well  as  individuals,  but  so  it  was ;  Pope 
Pius  the  Tenth  has  but  a  poor  status  in  the  world 
compared  with  that  of  his  great  predecessor  Hilde- 
brand,  who  could  dare  to  keep  the  mightiest 
monarch  in  Christendom  standing  for  four  days, 
bare-footed  in  the  snow  with  a  rope  round  his  neck, 
awaiting  the  sentence  of  the  Vicar  of  Christ.  If  you 
care  to  go  back  into  the  literature  of  this  period  you 
will  find  that  the  language  of  this  twenty-first  chap- 
ter of  Revelation,  as  well  as  that  of  Isaiah  and 
Ezekiel,  was  pressed  into  the  service  of  this  seem- 
ingly invincible  Church  of  Rome.  Here  was  the 
City  of  God.     What  else  could  men  want  ? 

But  the  hour  came  when  this  too  was  challenged, 
and  the  blow  struck  at  the  Reformation  is  reverber- 
ating still.  Luther  did  not  see  all  he  was  doing 
when  he  voiced  the  rising  consciousness  of  the 
Europe  that  Rome  had  lifted  out  of  Barbarism ; 
probably  he  would  have  shrunk  from  the  task  if  he 
had.  He  was  really  sounding  the  death-knell  of 
Church  authority  in  any  and  every  form.  Protest- 
antism was  no  substitute  for  Catholicism ;  as  an 
ecclesiastical  system  neither  has  any  more  promise 
of  permanence  than  the  other.  By  a  slow  but  inevit- 
able process  men  are  turning  away  from  the  Church 
as  such  towards  a  new  and  higher  realisation  of  the 
City  of  God.  I  believe  the  day  is  coming  rapidly 
when  the  Church  as  we  have  hitherto  known  ity 
whether  Protestant  or  Catholic,  will  have  ceased  to 
be.  Many  people  see  this,  and  some  of  them 
tremble  for  the  future,  as  thoughtful  men  were  trem- 
bling at  the  time  my  text  was  written.    If  the  Church 


THE  HOLY  CITY  ANU  ITS  TEMPLE     275 

is  to  go  what  is  to  take  its  place  ?  Is  everything  to 
be  materialised?  Will  there  be  no  place  for  the 
heavenly  vision,  no  harbour  of  refuge  for  souls 
weary  of  the  struggle  and  anguish  of  life  ?  Can  we 
spare  the  Church  ?  Can  we  dispense  with  the  holy 
fellowship  of  man  with  man  on  a  plane  higher  than 
that  of  ordinary  earthly  existence  and  ordinary 
human  interest?  If  not,  where  are  we  to  find  it,  if 
the  Church  is  to  be  no  more  ? 

These  are  questions  which  are  agitating  many 
minds  at  the  present  time.  Some  are  utterly  blind 
to  the  necessity  for  asking  them  at  all,  many  are 
indifferent.  But  to  the  serious-minded  who  are  de- 
spondent regarding  the  decline,  the  inevitable  de- 
cline, of  Church  influence  and  organisation,  I  can 
only  say  :  Fear  not.  God  has  never  yet  destroyed 
but  to  build  bigger.  I  think  I  can  see  what  is 
coming.  We  are  witnessing  the  emergence  of  a 
Christianised  social  organism  from  the  chaos  and 
materialism  of  the  past.  The  hour  is  at  hand  when 
we  shall  no  longer  speak  of  the  Church  and  the 
world  over  against  each  other,  the  one  sacred  and 
the  other  profane ;  we  shall  come  to  see  that  human 
society  is  itself  the  sacred  thing,  and  that  our  work 
is  to  fill  it  fuller  and  ever  fuller  of  God.  We  shall 
have  no  need  to  mourn  the  disappearance  of  the 
Church ;  its  pretensions  are  unreal  even  now.  Even 
now  the  life  of  the  Church  is  no  higher  and  no 
happier  than  that  of  the  world.  The  average  mem- 
ber of  the  Church  is  no  nobler  and  no  truer  as  a 
friend  and  helper  than  those  who  make  no  religious 
profession  whatever.  When  I  say  this  I  am  very 
far  from  wishing  to  disparage  the  moral  sincerity 


276    THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMPLE 

of  the  representatives  and  adherents  of  organised 
Christianity ;  I  am  only  pointing  out  a  fact.  In  one 
sense  that  fact  is  a  sign  of  the  victory  of  Christ. 
Time  was  when  the  moral  standard  of  pagan  civilis- 
ation was  far  below  that  of  the  Christian  society 
which  lived  in  its  midst ;  to-day  it  is  otherwise,  and 
it  is  not  unfair  to  say  that  the  principal  part  of  that 
difference  is  due  to  the  slow  working  of  the  leaven 
of  the  Christian  evangel.  We  are  still  far,  far 
behind  what  we  ought  to  be,  but  it  is  at  least  an 
enormous  gain  that  the  modern  world  has  come  to 
see  that  the  moral  standard  of  Jesus  was  the  right 
one  and  to  honour  it  accordingly.  No  doubt  there 
is  much  confusion  of  thought  and  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  what  that  standard  really  is  in  detail, 
but  there  is  practically  no  difference  of  opinion  as  to 
what  it  is  in  spirit.  We  have  come  to  accept  the 
idea  of  brotherhood,  compassion,  the  duty  of  caring 
for  the  weak,  the  necessity  for  co-operation  in  order 
to  make  life  rich  and  full.  We  can  imagine  no 
higher  standard  for  the  individual  than  that  of  de- 
veloping his  powers  to  the  uttermost  in  order  to 
make  them  as  great  a  gift  as  possible  to  the  service 
of  society.  Even  when  a  man  is  playing  for  his  own 
hand  he  has  to  pretend  that  his  object  is  to  serve  the 
communal  well-being.  Almost  insensibly  we  have 
come  to  recognise  that  the  service  of  all  should  be 
the  consistent  aim  and  endeavour  of  every  indi- 
vidual. This  is  nothing  new,  even  in  Christianity, 
but  the  spirit  which  informs  it  is,  or  should  be,  the 
spirit  of  love.  No  one  disputes  this  now.  We  are 
coming  to  expect  from  every  man  the  fullest  devo- 
tion to  this  principle,  and  we  measure  every  man's 


THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMPLE     277 

worth  by  his  response  to  the  demand.  In  this  re- 
spect the  Church  goes  no  further  than  the  world. 
We  have  ceased  to  dispute  about  the  ideal  itself; 
what  we  dispute  about  now  is  the  way  in  which  the 
ideal  is  being  realised  or  avoided,  and  the  Church 
has  no  monopoly  of  the  earnestness  and  enthusiasm 
with  which  the  subject  is  being  debated  in  every 
rank  of  life.  Is  not  this  plain  to  be  seen  ?  When 
the  Dreyfus  scandal  was  brought  to  light  who  was 
the  indomitable  friend  of  the  oppressed  who  insisted 
that  justice  should  be  done,  and  dared  all  risks  in 
order  to  arouse  public  opinion  on  the  question  ? 
Not  a  Christian  preacher,  but  the  anti-clerical  novel- 
ist, Emile  Zola.  The  Church,  officially  speaking, 
was  against  him  in  the  matter,  and  seemed  to  love 
darkness  rather  than  light.  If  you  care  to  read 
down  the  roll  of  present-day  benefactors  of  the 
human  race  you  will  see  this  kind  of  thing  exempli- 
fied over  and  over  again.  It  cannot  honestly  be  said 
that  the  Church  as  such,  whether  Catholic  or  Pro- 
testant, is  any  more  prominent  in  the  advocacy  of 
truth  and  right  than  is  any  other  part  of  the 
community. 

We  are  now  upon  the  eve  of  still  further  develop- 
ments in  the  practical  application  of  the  ideal  of 
Jesus  to  the  needs  of  mankind.  The  social  con- 
sciousness is  awakening  as  it  never  has  done  before, 
either  in  Christendom  or  in  the  greatest  years  of 
pagan  Greece  and  Rome.  We  have  now  a  sense  of 
social  sin  such  as  even  the  Puritans  never  had  and 
never  dreamed  of.  We  see  the  maladjustments  of 
our  industrial  organisation,  and  we  are  seeking  to 
remedy  them.    Here  again  we  are  all  agreed.    There 


278    THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMPLE 

is  no  need  to  convince  any  one  of  the  necessity  for 
ameliorative  action  and  the  moral  obligation  to 
undertake  it ;  what  we  do  not  agree  upon  is  the  direc- 
tion in  w'hich  we  ought  to  proceed.  And  here  is  a 
significant  thing  :  The  division  of  opinion  inside 
the  Church  is  just  as  pronounced,  and  parties  are 
divided  in  exactly  the  same  way,  as  outside  the 
Church.  You  will  find  that  the  man  with  something 
to  lose  by  any  drastic  economic  changes,  even  if  he 
be  a  pillar  in  the  Christian  society  and  a  generous 
giver  to  its  funds,  will  usually  resist  the  proposals 
of  the  more  earnest  social  reformers.  He  will  tell 
you  that  he  does  so  because  he  is  afraid  it  will  be 
bad  for  society ;  what  he  really  means  is  that  it  will 
be  less  comfortable  for  himself,  but  perhaps  he  does 
not  realise  that.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many 
earnest  spirits  in  the  pews  and  pulpits  of  our 
churches  who  feel  the  present  situation  to  be  intoler- 
able and  are  joining  hands  with  avowed  atheists 
and  agnostics  in  the  endeavour  to  replace  it  by  some- 
thing better.  Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  they  are 
morally  more  closely  akin  to  the  latter  than  they  are 
to  the  former?  You  will  find  this  cross  division 
running  through  all  ranks  and  classes,  and  upset- 
ting all  our  preconceived  notions  of  what  is  right 
and  desirable.  Take  the  rich  man.  Sometimes  he 
is  a  Christian  who  endows  missions ;  sometimes  he 
is  an  unscrupulous  financier  w^ho  piles  up  a  fortune 
by  squeezing  the  last  drop  of  blood  out  of  his  fel- 
lows; sometimes  he  is  a  Christian  philanthropist  or 
socialist ;  sometimes  he  is  these  without  being  pro- 
fessedly a  Christian.  Now  watch  what  happens. 
You  will  find  the  rich  Christian  and  the  rich  man  of 


THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMPLE     279 

the  world  arrayed  on  the  side  of  individualism 
against  the  rich  Christian  and  the  rich  man  of  the 
world  arrayed  on  the  side  of  social  regeneration. 
While  the  struggle  is  proceeding  it  will  be  impos- 
sible for  you  to  say  which  is  the  Christian  by  any 
external  marks  whatsoever ;  the  cleavage  takes  place 
on  moral  grounds  which  altogether  ignore  ecclesi- 
astical considerations.  It  goes  without  saying  that 
when  you  reach  the  workers  the  same  thing  holds 
equally  good,  except  that  the  majority  of  the 
workers  have  a  keener  perception  of  the  urgency  of 
the  practical  issue.  But  the  division  of  opinion  is 
moral,  not  ecclesiastical ;  they  would  smile  at  you  if 
you  were  to  tell  them  that  it  is  a  question  of  the 
Church  against  the  world.  They  know  it  is  nothing 
of  the  sort,  although  the  moral  passion  which  is 
being  put  into  it  is  as  great  as  anything  that  was 
ever  shown  by  Christian  saints  and  martyrs  in  the 
heroic  ages  of  the  religion  of  Jesus. 

So  now  you  see  where  we  are.  It  is  no  use  trying 
to  ignore  the  inevitable  drift  of  things.  We  are 
facing  a  new  synthesis.  Something  greater  than 
the  Church  is  rising  into  view,  and  the  thoughts  of 
men  are  receiving  a  new  focus.  What  we  are  wit- 
nessing is  the  building  of  the  City  of  God,  a 
regenerated  human  society  which  needs  no  Temple, 
because  there  is  no  part  of  it  in  which  God  is  not. 
The  new  world  that  is  coming  is  just  as  sacred,  and 
just  as  full  of  the  divine  life,  as  the  Church  has  always 
claimed  to  be  but  never  was.  The  great  thing  we 
have  now  to  do  is  to  get  men  to  believe  this  and  act 
upon  it.  We  have  to  create  the  same  feeling  for 
human  society  as  a  whole  that  Christians  used  to 


28o    THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMPLE 

have  for  the  ark  of  God,  the  holy  Jerusalem,  as  they 
called  the  Church.  We  want  them  to  love  it  with 
all  the  concentrated  energies  of  mind  and  heart. 
We  want  them  to  learn  to  see  Christ  in  it,  and  to 
enthrone  Him  in  every  part  of  it.  We  want  to 
imbue  them  with  reverence  for  human  nature  just  as 
it  is,  and  to  inspire  them  with  a  glowing  hope  and 
confidence  as  to  what  it  may  become.  We  want  to 
see  the  world  of  toil  transformed  by  the  light  of 
heaven.  We  want  to  get  all  the  children  of  the 
Most  High  to  believe  that  the  truest  worship  of  God 
is  the  service  of  their  kind ;  we  want  to  expel  the 
foolish  and  unworthy  notion  that  any  man  is  so  bad 
that  he  can  be  excluded  from  divine  favour,  and  shut 
outside  the  privileges  of  the  rest.  We  want  to  drive 
home  to  every  conscience  the  thought  of  individual 
responsibility  for  the  common  good  and  the  common 
ill.  We  want  to  get  rid  of  the  delusion  that  society 
has  no  duties  towards  the  morally  diseased ;  we  want 
to  insist  that  social  and  individual  regeneration 
imply  each  other.  We  must  urge  in  season  and  out 
of  season  that  the  one  thing  that  needs  to  be  done  in 
human  relations  is  to  reveal  God.  We  shall  glorify 
God  in  our  politics,  and  we  shall  learn  to  say  so 
openly  and  gladly.  We  shall  have  done  with  the 
wicked  assumption  that  statesmen  must  necessarily 
be  liars  and  thieves,  and  that  the  nations  they  repre- 
sent must  act  like  birds  of  prey  swooping  down 
upon  the  unfortunate  and  the  defenceless  to  grab 
and  devour.  We  shall  banish  cynicism  from  our 
international  concerns,  and  therefore  we  shall  have 
to  grow  a  new  race  of  leaders  of  the  people  who  will 
not  stand  idly  by  while  a  whole  population  is  being 


THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMPLE     281 

enslaved  and  tortured  in  order  to  supply  dividends 
for  a  shameless  ring  of  financiers  who  never  see 
their  victims  and  care  about  nothing  but  lust  and 
gold.  The  time  is  not  so  far  distant  when  we  shall 
say  that  to  tolerate  the  existence  of  private  monoply 
in  the  necessaries  of  life,  or  to  give  to  any  one  man 
the  power  to  exploit  his  fellows  for  his  own  advan- 
tage, is  a  sin  against  God  in  which  the  whole  com- 
munity is  implicated.  All  this  will  come  about  just 
as  soon  as  we  can  arouse  in  the  public  mind  the 
same  passionate  devotion  to  the  welfare  of  society 
that  Christians  once  felt  for  the  Church.  We  must 
compel  men  to  think  of  it  as  holy  unto  the  Lord,  the 
living  Temple  on  whose  altars  His  light  is  ever 
burning,  and  His  being  is  ever  offered  as  the  bread 
of  life  for  His  children. 

And  this  can  be  done;  it  is  the  one  thing  that 
ought  to  be  set  before  the  young  men  of  this  genera- 
tion, men  who  feel  within  themselves  the  stirring  of 
great  emotions,  and  know  not  how  to  interpret  them. 
The  Church  must  no  longer  claim  your  allegiance 
except  as  a  means  to  an  end,  and  that  end  the  service 
of  a  far  more  sacred  thing,  the  city  whose  Temple 
is  the  living  God.  After  all,  the  Church  is  no  more 
than  a  voluntary  association  for  the  attainment  of  a 
certain  object.  She  forfeits  her  right  to  exist  the 
moment  she  loses  sight  of  that  object.  Her  out- 
ward unity  was  shattered  long  ago,  and  a  good 
thing  too;  God  shattered  it  in  order  to  prepare  the 
way  for  the  higher  unity  of  human  brotherhood. 
But  I  wish — oh,  how  earnestly  I  wish — all  members 
of  all  Churches  and  of  no  Church  could  come  to  think 
of  human  society  as  Christians  once  thought  of  the 


282     THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMPLE 

Church  universal  and  undivided.  I  never  go  into 
a  CathoHc  church  without  catching  something  of 
the  spirit  of  that  older  day.  In  the  silence  of  the 
kneeling  worshippers;  in  the  sacred  lamps  that 
burn  before  the  high  altar;  in  the  pictures  that 
adorn  the  walls,  showing  the  stages  of  the  Cross  on 
which  the  life  of  Christ  was  sacrificed  that  He  might 
draw  all  men  unto  Himself,  I  see  a  symbol  of  the 
vaster  unity  that  is  yet  to  be  achieved.  There  is  a 
solemn  stillness,  a  suggestion  of  heaven  and  of  un- 
seen helpers,  in  that  earthly  temple  made  with 
hands.  It  is  impossible  for  any  man  with  reverence 
in  his  soul  to  stand  in  that  silence  without  feeling 
that  it  is  the  speech  of  God.  Cannot  we  come  to 
feel  the  same  about  the  common  life  of  humanity  ? 
Cannot  we  worship  God  there,  knowing  what  we 
are  doing,  and  rejoicing  to  do  it?  Cannot  we  say 
as  we  enter  the  working-man's  home,  Here  is  one 
shrine  in  the  glorious  Temple  of  our  God ;  we  have 
to  make  this  beautiful  in  reverent  acknowledgment 
of  the  divine  presence.  Nothing  is  too  good  for  the 
God  who  deigns  to  dwell  here,  and  nothing  should 
be  withheld  that  can  make  the  place  of  His  feet 
glorious.  Here  is  the  sacred  trinity — father,  mother, 
and  child.  Here  is  the  mystic  union  of  the  one  with 
the  many ;  here  is  the  heaven  that  is  to  be.  Then, 
when  we  go  out  into  the  busy  world,  and  hear  the 
voice  of  the  multitudes  in  our  great  cities,  like  the 
sound  of  many  waters ;  or  watch  the  progress  of 
human  thought  and  achievement — the  beauty  of  the 
heart  conjoined  to  the  magic  of  the  hand;  when 
nation  calls  to  nation  to  bring  their  glory  and 
honour  into  the  City  of  God — shall  we  not  say  that 


THE  HOLY  CITY  AND  ITS  TEMFLE    283 

the  Temple  of  the  King  of  Heaven  has  vaster  pro- 
portions than  we  knew,  and  that  we  love  its  every 
stone  ?  As  Walt  Whitman  has  it  in  a  poem  which 
consists  of  a  single  verse — 

I  dream'd  in  a  dream  I  saw  a  city  invincible  to  the  attacks  of 

the  whole  of  the  rest  of  the  earth, 
I  dream'd  that  was  the  new  city  of  Friends, 
Nothing  was  greater   there  than   the  quality  of  robust  love, 

it  led  the  rest. 
It  was  seen  every  hour  in  the  actions  of  the  men  of  that  city, 
And  in  all  their  looks  and  words. 

It  is  the  holy  city,  New  Jerusalem,  and  the  Lord 
God  Almighty  and  the  Lamb  are  the  Temple  of  it. 

We  are  builders  of  that  City, 

All  our  joys  and  all  our  groans, 
Help  to  rear  its  shining  ramparts, 

All  our  lives  are  building  stones  ; 
But  the  work  that  we  have  builded. 

Oft  with  bleeding  hands  and  tears, 
And  in  error  and'in  anguish,       -     j 

Will  not  perish  with  our  years. 

It  will  be  at  last  made  perfect 

In  the  universal  plan  ; 
It  will  help  to  crown  the  labours 

Of  the  toiling  hosts  of  man ; 
It  will  last  and  shine  transfigured 

In  the  final  reign  of  right ; 
It  will  merge  into  the  splendours 

Of  the  City  of  the  Light. 


XIX 

THE   LAMB'S   BOOK   OF   LIFE 

"  They  which  are  written  i7i  the  Lamb's  book  of  life. ^^ 
—Rev.  xxi.  27. 

From  our  infancy  we  have  all  been  accustomed 
to  hear  about  the  Lamb's  Book  of  Life,  but  how 
many  of  us  know  where  the  idea  came  from,  and 
exactly  what  it  stands  for?  Is  it  not  possible  that 
some  of  us  have  an  inadequate  and  even  a  per- 
verted notion  as  to  the  proper  interpretation  of  the 
metaphor  ?  I  feel  that  there  is  some  danger  of 
belittling  a  grand  and  inspiring  subject  by  ignor- 
ing the  original  conditions  out  of  w^hich  it  sprang. 
I  am  going  to  try  this  morning  to  show  you  as 
briefly  as  I  can  what  those  conditions  were.  Then 
let  us  see  whether  our  use  of  this  scriptural 
language  is  worthy  of  the  theme.  After  that  let 
us  reapply  its  message  to  our  own  souls. 

Like  many  of  the  sweetest  passages  in  the  New 
Testament,  the  inspiration  of  this  one  is  derived 
from  the  Old.  References  to  the  Book  of  Life  are 
to  be  found  in  various  parts  of  the  Jewish  scrip- 
tures, especially  after  the  exile.  Those  who  re- 
turned from  the  Babylonian  captivity  were  enrolled 
by  families  in  a  great  book  kept  for  that  purpose. 
The  names  in  this  roll  were  supposed  to  constitute 

284 


THE    LAMB'S    BOOK    OF    LIFE       285 

the  new  Israel,  the  nation  which  was  henceforth  a 
reHgious  community,  a  church  and  a  kingdom  in 
one.  To  this  nation  was  committed  the  task  of 
rebuilding  the  sacred  city  of  Jerusalem,  and  re- 
instituting  the  ancient  worship  of  God  on  Mount 
Zion.  Babylon,  with  its  heathenism  and  oppres- 
sion, had  been  left  behind;  the  kingdom  of  liberty 
and  holiness  lay  before.  God  had  wrought  a  mighty 
deliverance  for  His  people.  In  order  to  realise  the 
jubilation  with  which  this  event  was  hailed  you 
must  imagine  yourself  to  be  one  of  the  long  pro- 
cession of  Jewish  exiles  making  their  way  back 
across  the  Syrian  desert  to  the  little  spot  they  called 
home.  For  many  weary  years  they  had  been 
afflicted  in  the  cruel  city  of  the  plains;  they  were 
now  free  to  go  back  to  the  land  of  their  fathers  and 
their  holy  city,  Jerusalem.  "  And  the  ransomed  of 
the  Lord  shall  return,  and  come  to  Zion  with  songs 
and  everlasting  joy  upon  their  heads  :  They  shall 
obtain  joy  and  gladness,  and  sorrow  and  sighing 
shall  flee  away." 

But,  when  they  got  home,  these  people  were  dis- 
gusted by  the  paganism  and  poor  moral  quality  of 
their  kinsmen  whom  they  found  already  there. 
This  was  the  reason  why  they  were  so  particular 
about  the  book  of  names.  They  refused  to  wor- 
ship with  or  include  in  their  fellowship  those  who 
had  intermixed  with  foreign  nations,  and  degraded 
the  service  of  God  by  heathen  rites.  They  there- 
fore became  very  strict  about  the  qualifications  for 
citizenship  in  the  new  Jerusalem  which  they  had 
now  to  build.  Only  those  whose  names  were  on 
the  roll  as  being  qualified  by  character,  training, 


286      THE    LAMB'S    BOOK   OF    LIFE 

and  descent  for  membership  in  the  new  kingdom 
were  admitted  to  the  altar,  or  allowed  to  dwell 
within  the  walls.  How  far  these  rigorous  regula- 
tions were  actually  enforced  we  do  not  know,  but 
while  the  enthusiasm  of  the  restoration  lasted,  they 
were  no  doubt  observed  to  a  considerable  degree. 
As  time  wore  on,  however,  they  were  relaxed;  the 
level  of  moral  earnestness  declined ;  there  was  much 
disappointment  among  those  who  had  hoped  for 
great  things.  Never  again  was  Israel  what  she 
had  been  in  her  ancient  days  of  independence. 

But  this  ideal  of  a  City  of  God  and  a  Book  of 
Life  was  never  forgotten,  and,  as  you  see,  it  sup- 
plied a  good  deal  of  the  imagery  of  primitive 
Christianity,  particularly  of  the  Book  of  Revela- 
tion. Henceforth  Babylon  became  a  synonym  for 
the  Roman  Empire,  and  the  Book  of  Life  a  meta- 
phor to  signify  those  who  were  included  in  the 
Church  of  Jesus.  Now  here  is  a  rather  difficult 
thing  for  us  to  grasp.  There  is  no  room  for  doubt 
that  these  first  Christians  really  thought  of  the 
earthly  Jerusalem  as  still  somehow  to  be  the  centre 
of  a  regenerated  world,  but  as  time  went  on  the 
ideal  was  transferred  from  earth  to  heaven.  When 
we  speak  of  the  New  Jerusalem  we  generally  mean 
heaven,  but  this  was  not  so  at  first.  Apparently 
— strange  as  it  may  seem — primitive  Christianity 
believed  in  a  state  of  existence  which  could  be  both 
earth  and  heaven.  This  is  what  to  us  seems  so 
puzzling.  We  cannot  imagine  heaven  and  earth 
becoming  one,  but  they  could  and  did.  Thus  the 
writer  of  the  chapter  which  contains  our  text  says  : 
''  I    saw   tlie   holy   city.    New   Jerusalem,    coming 


THE    LAMB'S    BOOK   OF    LIFE       287 

down  from  God  out  of  heaven."  A  close  examina- 
tion of  all  that  follows  shows  clearly  that  in  his 
view  heaven  and  earth  now  became  merged  into 
each  other,  and  there  was  no  longer  to  be  any  talk 
of  a  material  and  a  spiritual,  a  hither  and  a  yonder. 
To  describe  his  vision  he  finds  himself  compelled  to 
use  the  old  familiar  language  about  the  Holy  City 
and  the  Book  of  Life.  We  have  seen  where  he  got 
it,  but  we  see  also  that  he  idealises  it.  The  Book 
of  Life  is  no  longer  the  roll  of  those  who  came  back 
from  Babylon  and  were  found  worthy  of  citizen- 
ship in  the  reconstituted  kingdom  of  Judah ;  it  is 
the  number  of  those  who  belong  to  Jesus  in  earth 
and  heaven. 

It  meant  something,  too,  far  beyond  what  the 
ordinary  Christian  nowadays  ever  dreams  of. 
Those  who  were  written  in  the  Lamb's  Book  of 
Life  were  supposed  to  be  written  there  not  merely 
because  they  gave  a  formal  allegiance  to  the  name 
of  Jesus,  but  because  they  were  fighting  the  battle 
for  righteousness  with  all  their  might.  This  was  a 
time  of  fierce  persecution,  when  men  and  women, 
and  even  little  children,  were  shedding  their  blood 
for  Jesus  every  day.  It  was  a  terrible  time,  and 
upon  the  fidelity  of  these  suffering  ones  depended 
the  whole  future  of  the  world.  An  old  civilisation 
was  dying  and  a  new  one  was  struggling  to  the 
birth.  It  seems  a  curious  thing  to  us  to  read  that 
these  Christian  martyrs  were  accused  of  atheism 
and  immorality,  but  so  it  was.  The  fact  was  that 
they  stood  for  a  purer  religion  and  a  higher 
morality  than  that  from  which  men's  thoughts  were 
now  turning  away.     Now  that  the  dust  of  battle 


288      THE    LAMB'S    BOOK   OF    LIFE 

has  settled  we  can  see  clearly  that  the  Christian 
ideal  of  losing  the  life  to  find  it  was  one  which  was 
fundamentally  opposed  to  the  decaying  faiths 
around  it.  But  it  was  too  high  for  speedy  imita- 
tion. The  world  laughed  at  the  ancient  gods 
of  Rome,  and  scorned  the  superstitions  and  de- 
grading rites  with  which  some  of  them  were  wor- 
shipped, but  it  was  not  prepared  for  the  social 
upheaval  which  would  follow  upon  the  whole- 
hearted acceptance  of  Christian  principles.  Then, 
as  now,  vested  interests  were  strong  enough  to  hold 
their  own  against  an  evangel,  and  even  to  repudiate 
it  in  the  name  of  something  higher.  So  there  was 
nothing  for  it  but  that  those  who  believed  in  the 
ideal  of  Jesus  should  witness  for  it  by  being  willing 
to  suffer  and  die  in  its  service.  They  did  so,  with 
what  result  you  now  know.  The  message  of  my 
text  is  that  those  who  thus  died  had  not  really  died 
any  more  than  their  Master.  Their  names  were 
written  in  His  Book  of  Life.  They  not  only  lived 
in  the  world  unseen,  but  in  the  triumph  of  truth 
and  righteousness  in  human  society  as  a  whole. 

Now  what  do  we  think  about  the  Lamb's  Book 
of  Life  to-day?  (The  ancient  symbols  are  losing 
some  of  their  power,  partly  because  people  do  not 
understand  them,  but  I  am  sure  they  would  love 
and  reverence  them  again  if  they  could  only  realise 
what  they  originally  meant.)  Well,  I  will  tell  you 
what  it  is  not.  It  is  not  a  list  of  those  whom  God 
has  agreed  to  admit  to  heaven  because  they  firmly 
believe  that  some  one  else  has  done  all  that  was 
necessary  to  get  them  there.  It  is  God's  roll  of 
honour.  It  is  the  glorious  company  of  those  who 
have   suffered  for   Christ.     It  includes  all  whose 


THE    LAMB'S    BOOK   OF    LIFE       289 

lives  have  been  willingly  and  cheerfully  offered  on 
the  altar  of  love.  The  very  phrase  ''  the  Lamb's 
Book  of  Life"  is  a  declaration  of  this,  and  dis- 
tinguishes it  from  every  other  list  of  names  that 
was  ever  written. 

Those  whose  names  are  in  the  Book  of  Life  are 
life-givers.  They  are  the  servants  of  Jesus,  work- 
ing in  the  spirit  of  Jesus  to  minister  more  abundant 
life  to  the  world.  They  are  believers,  it  is  true; 
for  no  w^ork  worth  doing  has  ever  yet  been  done 
apart  from  the  dynamic  of  faith.  But  they  are  not 
merely  believers  in  the  conventional  sense;  they 
are  living  sacrifices,  filling  up  the  measure  that  is 
behind  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ  in  the  service  of 
man.  When  we  speak  of  the  Lamb's  Book  of  Life 
we  must  never  forget  this.  It  is  not  merely  the 
roll  of  those  who  have  escaped  something;  it  is 
the  designation  of  those  who  have  achieved  some- 
thing. No  mere  pious  acceptance  of  the  redeeming 
work  of  Christ;  no  comfortable  acquiescence  in 
the  belief  that  He  has  given  everything,  and  you 
have  only  to  take,  will  qualify  you  for  a  place  in 
the  Book  of  Life.  The  Lamb  slain  from  the  found- 
ation of  the  world  is  still  being  slain  on  the  altar 
of  human  hearts,  and  wherever  that  divine  sacrifice 
is  offered  new  power  and  hope  stream  into  this  dark 
and  sorrowful  world.  Alas,  we  have  almost  taken 
the  soul  out  of  this  grand  conception  by  the  unreal 
way  in  which  we  too  commonly  regard  it  now.  At 
the  time  my  text  was  written  men  and  women  were 
dying  for  it,  and  the  thing  they  most  needed  to 
hear  was  that  their  anguish  meant  greater  glory  for 
their  Lord  and  His  ultimate  triumph  over  all  the 
wickedness  and  all  the  pain  wherewith  the  souls 
19 


290      THE    LAMB'S    BOOK   OF    LIFE 

of  men  were  being  afflicted.  There  was  nothing  of 
which  they  needed  so  much  to  be  assured  as  that 
the  work  they  were  doing  was  not  in  vain,  and 
that  that  which  was  given  unto  death  would  pre- 
sently arise  in  glorious  eternal  life.  They  may  or 
may  not  have  thought  of  the  wicked  as  doomed  to 
everlasting  woe,  but  that  idea  finds  no  place  in  my 
text;  the  stress  is  placed  elsewhere.  The  one 
grand,  all-dominating  principle  of  it  is  that  those 
who  are  crucified  with  Christ  are  sharers  in  His 
triumph  and  partakers  of  His  life.  Dying  to  self 
they  live  to  God;  perishing  in  the  conflict  with 
that  which  is  base  and  foul  they  find  that  the  seem- 
ing death  is  no  death,  but  the  gateway  into  that 
higher  life  which  is  eternal  love  and  joy. 

Some  of  you  may  be  feeling  at  this  point  that 
you  are  missing  something  to  which  you  have  been 
accustomed,  and  which  you  greatly  value.  You 
may  be  feeling  that  this  explanation  of  the  Lamb's 
Book  of  Life  is  not  so  sweet  and  beautiful  as  the 
one  upon  which  you  have  been  taught  to  dwell, 
and  which  has  been  such  a  help  to  you  in  your 
religious  life.  You  may  be  saying  to  yourself  : 
**  I  do  not  like  this.  I  want  to  owe  everything  to 
Jesus.  Hitherto  I  have  always  thought  that  my 
name  was  written  in  the  Lamb's  Book  of  Life  be- 
cause the  Atonement  of  my  blessed  Redeemer  had 
won  for  me  a  place  in  the  blood-washed  throng 
before  the  throne  of  God  in  heaven.  I  have 
thought  of  Jesus  as  doing  that  work  alone,  without 
any  help,  and  of  myself  as  His  humble  beneficiary. 
I  do  not  want  to  think  anything  else,  nor  can  I 
readily  believe  that  my  place  in  that  Book  of  Life 
has  anything  to  do  with  my  merit  or  my  struggle, 


THE    LAMB'S    BOOK   OF    LIFE       291 

or  my  self-sacrifice,  or  anything  else  but  the  love 
of  Jesus." 

Well,  I  will  grant  that  to  all  outward  seeming 
there  is  a  great  difference  between  this  belief  of 
yours  and  what  I  have  just  been  telling  you.  Per- 
haps it  is  not  so  great  as  appears,  but  I  shall  not 
attempt  to  deny  it  or  explain  it  away.  I  put  it  to 
you — which  is  the  nobler  and  higher?  Which, 
judging  by  the  circumstances  in  which  this  great 
saying  was  born,  is  the  nearer  to  what  the  first 
followers  of  Jesus  felt  about  it?  Far  be  it  from 
me  to  lessen  the  worth  of  Jesus  in  your  regard  or 
even  to  seem  to  detract  from  the  value  of  His  aton- 
ing life  and  death.  But  there  is  something  here 
that  you  and  I  have  got  to  face.  We  have  got  to 
see  that  the  Atonement  of  Jesus  is  no  use  unless 
it  makes  us  like  Jesus.  It  has  got  to  be  repeated 
in  us.  As  Paul  has  it,  we  have  to  become  willing 
to  be  delivered  unto  death  for  Jesus'  sake  that  the 
life  of  Jesus  may  become  manifest  in  us.  There  is 
no  salvation  which  is  not  this,  and  the  gratitude 
and  reverence  that  we  really  owe  to  Jesus  are  grati- 
tude and  reverence  for  having  made  this  possible. 
I  put  it  to  you  again  :  which  is  worthier  of  Jesus, 
to  believe  that  He  has  got  us  into  heaven  without 
any  effort  of  our  own — a  heaven  from  which  others 
are  shut  out — or  to  rejoice  that  He  has  shown  us 
wherein  true  life  consists?  I  do  not  care  three 
straws  whether  I  go  to  heaven  or  not — using  the 
word  for  the  moment  in  its  conventional  sense. 
But  I  do  rejoice  and  thank  God  for  that  great 
Master  and  Redeemer  of  mankind  who  has  shown 
me  at  an  unspeakable  cost  what  it  is  to  live  the 
life  of  love.     I  wish  I  could  live  it,  but  I  am  frail 


292      THE    LAMB'S    BOOK   OF    LIFE 

and  earthly,  whereas  He  was  divinely  strong,  and 
the  light  of  God  shone  in  all  He  said  and  did. 
And  yet,  no  sooner  have  I  realised  this  than  my 
heart  rises  in  loving  gratitude  to  Him  once  more 
for  the  assurance  that  human  weakness  and  imper- 
fection can  and  shall  be  transformed  into  divine 
strength  and  holiness  by  the  power  of  the  indwell- 
ing Spirit  of  God.  To  have  shown  us  God  in 
humanity  is  to  have  shown  us  God  in  all  humanity. 
To  have  shown  us  that  humanity  invincible  once, 
is  to  have  shown  us  that  it  shall  be  invincible 
again  and  yet  again  until  divine  love  has  no  more 
earthly  victories  to  win. 

O  wisest  love !  that  flesh  and  blood, 

Which  did  in  Adam  fail, 
Should  strive  afresh  against  the  foe, 

Should  strive  and  should  prevail ; 

And  that  a  higher  gift  than  grace 

Should  flesh  and  blood  refine, 
God's  presence,  and  His  very  self, 

And  essence  all-divine  1 

But,  dear  fellows-Christians,  all  of  you  who  really 
love  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  sincerity  and  truth, 
and  do  not  merely  make  a  lip-profession  of  it — I 
am  well  aware  that  your  names  are  written  in  the 
Lamb's  Book  of  Life  in  the  sense  that  my  text 
really  means.  Your  real  creed  is  often  much 
deeper  and  truer  than  your  formal  one.  If  you 
love  Jesus  you  love  what  Jesus  stood  for,  and  your 
love  shows  itself  in  the  laying  down  of  your  life 
in  His  service  that  you  may  take  it  again  in  the 
greater  good  and  larger  life  of  all  mankind.  You 
cannot  be  selfish  and  mean  if  you  belong  to  Him ; 
you  can  no  longer  hesitate  about  what  to  do  with 


THE    LAMB'S    BOOK   OF    LIFE       293 

the  opportunity  that  God  has  given  you ;  you  can- 
not shrink  from  the  cross  when  the  cause  of  truth 
requires  it.  You  cannot  think  first  and  foremost 
of  your  own  salvation ;  as  the  love  of  God  is  shed 
abroad  in  your  heart  you  get  beyond  all  that,  and 
seek  only  to  deliver  the  world  from  the  bondage  of 
all  that  makes  it  dark  and  sad.  I  say  I  know  this, 
and  you  know  it  too.  It  is  the  grand,  unifying, 
spiritual  experience  which  underlies  all  differences 
in  doctrine  and  reveals  itself  in  all  who  are  of  the 
fellowship  of  Christ.    " 

I  do  not  hesitate,  therefore,  to  appeal  to  all 
sincere  and  earnest  souls  in  this  congregation  this 
morning  in  the  same  spirit  as  the  writer  of  my  text. 
I  do  not  care  what  church  you  belong  to  or  whether 
you  belong  to  none.  I  do  not  care  whether  your 
theology  is  broad  or  narrow,  old  or  new.  The 
gospel  I  am  preaching  to  you  this  morning  is  the 
gospel  of  a  great  deniandj  and  I  believe  from  my 
heart  that  you  will  respond  to  it  just  because  it  is 
that.  I  do  not  offer  you — I  dare  not  offer  you — a 
salvation  that  will  cost  you  nothing.  The  salva- 
tion that  is  spoken  of  here  will  cost  you  everything 
that  you  have  to  give.  To  have  your  name  written 
in  the  Lamb's  Book  of  Life  is  no  mere  form  of 
words ;  it  is  a  call  to  death — death  to  the  world  that 
you  may  save  the  world,  death  to  self-interest  that 
you  may  find  your  own  soul,  death  to  the  lesser 
that  you  may  realise  the  larger  good.  I  am  almost 
afraid  of  using  these  terms,  for  they  are  now 
bandied  about  in  religious  circles  in  a  way  that 
often  amounts  to  mere  cant  and  formalism.  In 
what  sense  can  any  man  be  said  to  have  renounced 
the  world  or  died  to  self  while  he  holds  aloof  from 


294      THE    LAMB'S    BOOK   OF    LIFE 

the  world's  woe  and  avoids  everything  that  may 
jeopardise  his  security  or  lower  him  in  the  esteem 
of  his  fellows  ?  There  is  nothing  more  unreal  than 
the  way  in  which  we  speak  to-day  of  these  high 
themes  and  their  corresponding  obligations.  And 
the  world  has  found  it  out.  When  you  come  to 
the  average  man  now-a-days  with  your  offer  of  a 
full  and  free  salvation  which  he  has  nothing  to  do 
but  accept,  and  which  will  secure  him  entrance  into 
heavenly  habitations,  he  does  not  listen.  But  come 
to  him  as  Jesus  came  with  the  sternly  loving  de- 
mand that  he  should  make  his  whole  life  an  offer- 
ing to  the  highest  God  has  given  him  to  see,  and 
you  have  compelled  him  not  only  to  listen  but  to 
choose.  He  knows  well  enough  whether  or  no  his 
name  is  in  the  Lamb's  Book  of  Life,  for  he  knows 
whether  he  is  really  trying  to  give  himself  for  the 
life  of  the  world  or  whether  he  is  not.  He  knows 
what  feelings  dominate  him  most.  He  knows 
whether  he  is  serving  God  or  Mammon,  or  even 
trying  to  serve  both  at  once.  He  knows  whether 
the  cause  of  truth  and  righteousness  is  stronger  for 
his  advocacy,  or  whether  he  has  left  to  others  the 
danger  and  the  pain  of  helping  to  hasten  its  ulti- 
mate triumph.  When  Jesus  came  with  His  evangel 
to  the  world  of  nineteen  hundred  years  ago.  He 
came  to  such  men  as  this  not  with  an  offer  but  with 
a  demand — or  rather  an  offer  contained  in  a  de- 
mand. So  strenuous  was  that  demand  that  few- 
were  able  to  see  that  it  in  itself  was  the  evangel. 
It  called  men  away  from  base  desires  and  selfish 
aims  and  bade  them  give  themselves  without  re- 
serve to  whatever  cause  needed  them  the  most. 
To  one  man  His  word  was,  Follow  me  and  be  a 


THE    LAMB'S    BOOK   OF    LIFE       295 

fisher  of  men.  To  another  :  Go  and  sell  all  that 
thou  hast  and  give  to  the  poor.  To  another  :  Are 
ye  able  to  drink  of  my  cup  and  be  baptised  with 
my  baptism  ?  Hardly  any  two  alike,  but  under- 
neath every  summons  was  the  requirement  of  a 
perfect  self-devotion  to  the  cause  of  God,  which  is 
only  another  name  for  the  good  of  man. 

It  is  to  this  that  I  call  you.  I  respect  your  man- 
hood too  much  to  offer  you  anything  less.  From 
you  God  requires  the  utmost  for  the  whole,  and  not 
until  you  are  willing  to  give  it  will  you  begin  to 
discover  what  life  really  means,  and  what  a  glorious 
thing  it  is  to  live.  I  reverence  Jesus  too  much  to 
put  you  off  with  the  lie  that  He  has  done  every- 
thing for  you  that  needs  to  be  done  in  order  to 
make  things  pleasant  for  you  in  the  world  to  come ; 
but  in  His  name  I  summon  you  to  continue  His 
work.  To  have  your  name  written  in  His  Book 
is  to  be  of  the  company  of  those  who  have  resisted 
unto  blood  striving  against  wrong.  The  greatest 
thing  He  ever  did  for  you  or  for  mankind  was  to 
make  this  a  gospel  and  believe  that  men  would  rise 
to  it.  For  so  indeed  they  have,  and  ever  will  when 
they  see  it  for  what  it  is. 

I  read  in  one  of  the  daily  papers  the  other  day 
of  a  thrilling  incident  which  took  place  amid  the 
scene  of  horror  and  consternation  which  followed 
the  collision  of  the  St.  Paul  and  the  Gladiator  in 
the  Solent.  When  the  huge  American  liner 
crashed  into  the  British  warship,  two  or  three  sea- 
men on  the  latter  scrambled  up  the  bows  of  the 
former  into  safety.  No  sooner  had  one  of  them 
done  so,  however,  than  he  seemed  to  recollect 
himself,  and  called  out:   "  My  God,  what  have  I 


296      THE    LAMB'S    BOOK   OF    LIFE 

done?  What  will  my  captain  say?"  and  im- 
mediately jumped  back  into  the  sinking  ship. 
Whether  he  went  down  with  her  I  do  not  know; 
I  do  not  even  know  whether  the  story  is  true,  or 
whether  it  is  a  journalistic  invention,  but  I  sincerely 
hope  it  is  true.  The  spirit  which  prompted  that 
simple  seaman  to  leap  back  to  his  post  in  the  face 
of  death  is  the  spirit  which  I  seek  to  awaken  in 
you  for  all  the  business  of  living.  What  will  my 
Captain  say  ?  What  is  it  He  calls  for  ?  What 
does  He  expect  from  me  ?  Those  whose  names  are 
in  His  Book  of  Life  are  those  who  have  found  their 
salvation  in  ceasing  to  trouble  about  it,  and  offering 
themselves  instead  in  response  to  His  call  to  serve 
and  heal.  On  the  authority  of  Jesus  Himself  we 
have  it  that  some  may  be  in  this  Book  of  Life  who 
do  not  even  know  it,  the  criterion  of  their  worth 
being,  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto  the  least  of 
these  My  brethren,  ye  did  it  unto  Me." 

Dear  fellow  men,  this  is  the  real  gospel,  the 
gospel  in  which  you  will  find  redemption  from 
self-seeking,  and  the  joy  that  no  man  taketh  from 
you.  You  cannot  live  it  without  God,  but  to  try 
to  live  it  is  to  find  God.  It  is  high  as  heaven,  and 
deep  as  hell.  It  contains  all  that  you  will  ever 
need  for  this  world  or  the  next.  Sometimes  you 
are  sad  and  weary,  no  doubt,  with  the  struggle  to 
live,  and  the  repeated  disappointments  and  failures 
of  life.  You  have  been  down  in  the  mud  time  and 
again,  and  bruised  and  crushed  your  soul.  There 
are  some  hideous  things  in  your  record,  things  that 
you  wish  could  be  blotted  out  for  ever,  things  the 
very  memory  of  which  causes  you  shame  and 
dread.     Then  there  are  times  when  you  feel  how 


THE    LAMB'S    BOOK   OF    LIFE      297 

puny  you  are  in  face  of  the  sinister  forces  of  the 
world.  You  see  cruel  things  done,  and  you  are 
powerless  to  stop  them.  You  see  the  lie  triumph- 
ant and  injustice  unrebuked.  You  hear  every- 
where around  you  the  cry  of  human  anguish  as- 
cending towards  a  silent  heaven,  and  perhaps  you 
sink  in  bewilderment  under  the  mystery  and  horror 
of  it  all.  If  you  have  a  sympathetic  heart  you 
must  sometimes  burn  to  be  able  to  find  a  remedy 
for  it — a  remedy  for  your  own  sin  and  other 
people's,  a  remedy  for  the  darkness  and  the  pain. 
Well,  here  it  is.  If  God  is  to  come  to  you  He 
must  come  through  you  to  the  rescue  of  the  world. 
If  you  are  to  escape  from  sin  you  must  become  a 
sin-bearer — there  is  no  other  way.  If  you  would 
recover  hope  and  confidence  that  the  best  is  yet  to 
be,  you  must  be  willing  to  die  to  make  it  so.  Can 
you  do  it?  Will  you  do  it?  Do  you  even  want 
to  be  willing  to  do  it?  Courage,  then,  brother  of 
Christ,  your  name  is  written  in  His  Book  and 
graven  on  His  hands. 

This  is  life  to  come, 
Which  martyr'd  men  have  made  more  glorious 
For  us  who  strive  to  follow.     May  I  reach 
That  purest  heaven,  be  to  other  souls 
The  cup  of  strength  in  some  great  agony, 
Enkindle  generous  ardour,  feed  pure  love, 
Beget  the  smiles  that  have  no  cruelty — 
Be  the  sweet  presence  of  a  good  diffused, 
And  in  diffusion  ever  more  intense. 
So  shall  I  join  the  choir  invisible 
Whose  music  is  the  gladness  of  the  world. 


XX 

THE   LIFE   BEYOND 

"/  am  He  that  livetk,  aftd  was  dead;  and^  behold^  I 
am  alive  for  evermore,^'' — Rev.  i.  i8. 

Numbers  of  hearers  and  readers  of  my  sermons 
have  from  time  to  time  asked  me  to  state  in  public 
my  view  as  to  the  experiences  which  await  the  in- 
dividual soul  in  the  life  beyond  the  grave,  if  there 
be  such  a  life.  The  point  of  the  request  usually  is 
something  like  this  : — If  the  orthodox  Protestant 
belief  in  heaven  and  hell,  conceived  of  as  two 
entirely  separate  states  of  existence,  and  only  two, 
is  no  longer  admissible  to  enlightened  thought, 
what  are  we  to  put  in  its  place?  Have  we  good 
grounds  for  believing  in  an  after-life  at  all  ?  If  so, 
what  becomes  of  the  soul  in  that  mysterious  region  ? 
These  are  questions  upon  which  an  attitude  of  in- 
difference is  not  possible  to  every  one. 

What,  then,  does  our  present  experience,  con- 
joined to  a  conviction  that  the  universe  is  morally 
governed,  warrant  us  in  believing  about  the  destiny 
of  the  individual  soul  ?  The  subject  thus  opened 
up  is  an  enormous  one,  and  I  can  only  hope  to  touch 
briefly  to-night  upon  its  more  salient  features.  Our 
text  tells  us  most  that  we  need  to  know  about  it. 
The  writer  of  this  strange  book  is  here  speaking  of 
Christ,  but  we  are  justified  in  using  this  language 
of  every  one  who  tries  to  live  his  life  in  fellowship 

298 


THE    LIFE    BEYOND  299 

with  Christ.  Just  as  Jesus  lived  the  life  of  self- 
sacrifice,  even  unto  death,  so  are  His  followers 
called  to  do.  And  just  as  the  life  laid  down  in  the 
case  of  Jesus  meant  that  He  was  able  to  take  it 
again  in  fuller  and  more  glorious  fashion,  so  the 
same  principle  ought  to  hold  good  in  every  life  that 
is  animated  by  the  spirit  of  Jesus.  ''  I  am  He  that 
liveth  and  was  dead,  and,  behold,  I  am  alive  for 
evermore,"  might  be  said  of  every  great  soul  that 
has  ever  been  given  to  and  for  the  world. 

You  all  know  the  uncertainty  which  prevails  in 
many  minds  at  the  present  time  in  relation  to  the 
life  to  come.  There  are  not  a  few  good  people  who 
have  given  up  all  hope  of  arriving  at  anything  like 
a  settled  conviction  in  regard  to  it.  They  would 
tell  us  that  we  have  no  proof,  however  much  we 
may  desire  it,  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  con- 
tinued self-conscious  existence  after  death.  Many 
people  are  constitutionally  almost  incapable  of 
realising  that  there  can  be  an  existence  apart  from 
the  body.  When  they  hear  the  dreadful  words 
spoken  at  the  graveside — ''Earth  to  earth;  ashes 
to  ashes;  dust  to  dust  " — it  is  practically  impossible 
for  them  to  resist  the  feeling  that  that  is  indeed 
the  end,  and  that  nothing  more  remains  of  him  or 
her  whom  they  have  loved. 

Alas  for  him  who  never  sees 

The  stars  shine  through  his  cypress  trees  ; 

Who  hopeless  lays  his  dead  away, 

Nor  looks  to  see  the  breaking  day 

Across  the  mournful  marbles  play. 

This  state  of  mind  is  not  confined  to  those  who 
are  without  what  is  called  religious  faith.  There 
are  plenty  of  people  who  cling  to  the  hope  of  im- 


300  THE    LIFE    BEYOND 

mortality  without  finding  much  consolation  in  it; 
when  death  comes  to  those  they  love  they  feel  the 
separation  to  be  as  absolute  as  though  there  were 
no  such  thing  as  reunion  in  some  fairer  world.  I 
do  not  mean  that  they  disbelieve  in  re-union ;  on 
the  contrary  they  try  hard,  even  desperately,  to  find 
some  comfort  in  the  thought  of  it,  but,  often 
enough,  the  amount  to  be  derived  therefrom  is  not 
very  great.  Is  there  no  one  here  present  who  has 
ever  felt  like  this  ?  Death  has  made  a  terrible  gap 
in  your  affections;  torn  some  beautiful  joy  out  of 
your  life;  do  you  really  feel — can  you  feel — as 
though  the  dear  one  who  has  gone  is  as  much  alive 
as  ever  and  thinking  of  you  ?  Is  there  never  a 
moment  when  you  shiver  as  you  think  of  the  cold 
rain  falling  in  the  darkness  upon  the  little  mound 
that  hides  from  sight  all  that  remains  of  what  you 
once  loved,  and  the  memory  of  which  is  at  once 
your  greatest  sadness  and  your  greatest  joy  ?  You 
will  admit,  I  think,  that  anything  which  goes  to 
strengthen  our  realisation  of  the  life  beyond  death 
cannot  fail  to  be  other  than  good. 

But  what  have  we  that  will  do  this?  These  are 
days  in  which  the  mind  calls  for  proof  of  extra- 
ordinary assertions,  and  of  all  such  there  is  none 
greater  than  that  of  the  survival  of  the  soul  after 
death.  Some  doubt  has  of  late  been  cast  upon  the 
common  assumption  that  most  people  desire  indi- 
vidual immortality.  It  has  been  pointed  out  that 
there  are  many  w^ho  ask  for  nothing  more  than  to 
lie  down  and  rest  when  the  day's  work  is  done.  One 
eminent  scientist  has  declared  that  in  time  the 
normal  healthy-minded  man  or  woman  will  desire 
death  when  the  time  comes  just  as  naturally  as  we 


THE    LIFE    BEYOND  301 

all  desire  sleep  at  the  close  of  day.  Certain  it  is, 
too,  that  the  great  majority  of  human  beings  face 
death  complacently  and  calmly  when  the  end  actu- 
ally arrives,  however  much  they  may  have  feared 
the  change  beforehand.  But,  even  suppose  we  grant 
the  force  in  these  contentions,  I  still  believe  it  to 
be  overwhelmingly  true  that  the  ordinary  civilised 
human  being  w^ould  be  glad  to  be  assured  of  the 
truth  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul;  and  I  think 
the  chief  reason  for  this  desire  is  not  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  ego  so  much  as  a  longing  for  the  per- 
petuation of  the  higher  relationships  of  human 
experience.  It  is  love  that  is  at  the  bottom  of  the 
unquenchable  interest  that  most  people  seem  to 
take  in  speculation  about  the  unseen  world.  This 
is  far  from  being  discreditable  to  human  nature. 
What  is  there  to  give  in  answer  to  it?  In  stating 
my  own  convictions  on  the  subject  to-night  I  wish 
to  do  two  things: — First,  to  say  briefly  what  I 
hold  concerning  the  fact  of  immortality;  and 
secondly,  what  on  this  basis  we  may  expect  the 
destiny  of  the  soul  to  be. 

In  regard  to  the  first  of  these  points  let  me  assure 
you  that  to  me  the  cessation  of  any  form  of  self- 
conscious  existence  seems  unthinkable.  No  argu- 
ment can  convince  the  man  who  does  not  want  to 
be  convinced,  but  surely  to  a  reflective  mind  belief 
in  the  persistence  of  self-consciousness  is  bound  up 
with  belief  in  all  that  is  good  and  true.  Such  a 
statement  as  this  may  be  challenged,  but  I  cannot 
modify  it.  Observe  how  good  men  have  suffered 
and  died  in  all  ages  for  what  they  have  felt  to  be 
worthy  of  the  homage  of  humanity,  and  observe 
with  what  striking  unanimity  they  have  professed 


302  THE    LIFE    BEYOND 

their  faith  in  the  ultimate  victory  of  that  for 
which  they  stood.  But  why  should  the  good  prove 
victorious  any  more  than  the  bad  ?  John  Stuart 
Mill  once  asked  that  question  without  suggesting 
any  answer,  and  yet  the  answer  is  written  large 
on  the  page  of  human  history.  The  man 
must  be  blind  indeed  who  cannot  see  that  in  the 
long  run  the  true  is  victorious  over  the  false; 
good  does  prevail  against  evil;  right  is  stronger 
than  wrong.  I  have  more  than  once  argued 
with  a  pessimist  who  maintained  the  oppo- 
site, but  it  was  impossible  to  take  him  seriously. 
Let  those  who  are  filled  with  apprehension  con- 
cerning the  future  of  the  civilised  world  acquaint 
themselves  with  the  past  and  they  will  feel  re- 
assured. I  cannot  stay  to  elaborate  the  point :  all 
one  need  affirm  is  that  the  greatest  waymakers  of 
the  race  have  been  those  with  the  most  faith  in  the 
future,  and  their  faith  has  been  justified  by  results. 
Christ  crucified  always  enters  into  His  glory.  And 
yet  what  is  this  faith  but  an  invincible  confidence 
in  the  moral  government  of  the  universe  ?  Follow 
that  out  and  see  where  it  takes  you.  Here,  I  repeat, 
is  one  outstanding  fact,  namely,  that  that  which  is 
slain  on  the  altar  of  sacrifice  to-day  rises  in  power 
to-morrow  and  lives  for  evermore.  Is  it  then 
credible  that  in  a  universe  where  this  is  demon- 
strably true  the  victory  should  be  wasted  as  soon 
as  it  is  won  ?  Is  it  conceivable  that  Jesus  and 
Pilate  should  go  down  into  the  dust  together  and 
be  lost  in  the  same  eternal  silence  ?  Does  not  such 
a  supposition  seem  to  cancel  at  once  a  great  part  of 
the  value  of  what  Jesus  suffered  to  bring  into  mani- 
festation ?    Look  at  the  flagrant  contradiction  thus 


THE    LIFE    BEYOND  303 

involved.  Here  is  a  universe  in  which  the  highest 
is  sure  to  prevail;  yet  this  very  universe  will  fling 
into  nothingness  the  life  by  which  it  has  prevailed  ! 
One  might  as  well  say  the  victory  had  not  been 
gained  at  all;  it  is  like  painting  a  picture  and  burn- 
ing it.  True,  all  the  noblest  of  the  sons  of  God 
have  been  quite  willing  that  it  should  be  so,  so  far 
as  they  themselves  were  concerned,  if  only  they 
could  be  sure  that  their  work  was  done  and  had 
achieved  its  purpose.  Dr.  Parker  once,  in  one  of 
his  moods,  declared  that  the  only  immortality  he 
desired  was  to  live  on  in  the  good  he  had  wrought 
for  mankind — a  lofty  and  honourable  sentiment. 
That  great  pioneer  of  modern  thought,  Theodore 
Parker,  a  man  who  suffered  untold  hardship  and 
persecution  for  his  faithful  witness  to  truth,  put 
the  same  feeling  into  verse  : 

The  sad  sense  of  human  woe  is  deep 
Within  my  heart,  and  deepens  daily  there, 
I  see  the  want,  the  woe,  the  wretchedness, 
Of  smarting  men,  who  wear,  close  pent  in  towns, 
The  galling  load  of  life.     The  rich,  the  poor, 
The  drunkard,  criminal,  and  they  that  make 
Him  so,  and  fatten  on  his  tears  and  blood — 
I  bear  their  sorrows,  and  I  weep  their  sins  ; 
Would  I  could  end  them  !     No  :    I  see  before 
My  race  an  age  or  so  ;   and  I  am  sent 
For  the  stern  work,  to  hew  a  path  among 
The  thorns — I  take  them  in  my  flesh — to  tread 
With  naked  feet,  the  road,  and  smooth  it  o'er 
With  blood.     Well,  I  shall  lay  my  bones 
In  some  sharp  crevice  of  the  broken  way. 
Men  shall  in  better  times  stand  where  I  fell, 
And  journey  singing  on  in  perfect  bands. 
Where  I  have  trod  alone,  no  arm  but  God's, 
No  voice  but  His,  Enough  ! — His  voice.  His  arm. 

Yes,    just   so.    Great,    grand,    and   good !     But 
what  kind  of  a  moral  universe  would  it  be  from 


304  THE    LIFE    BEYOND 

which  a  man  like  that  could  be  blotted  out  ?  What 
would  his  work  be  worth  if  he  could  be  spared 
from  it?     Why,  he  himself  is  its  greatest  product. 

Now  this  is  the  evidence  for  immortality  which 
best  satisfies  me.  I  need  no  other.  I  feel  it  is 
strong  enough  to  carry  the  whole  case.  No  Christ 
has  ever  died  in  vain,  no  saviour  but  has  risen 
from  the  cross  to  the  throne.  The  victory  of  truth 
on  earth  is  but  the  sign  and  symbol  of  the  reign 
of  Christ  in  heaven ;  the  lesser  is  the  demonstration 
of  the  larger;  to  believe  in  the  one  is  to  affirm  the 
other. 

But  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  admit  that  this 
would  not  satisfy  everybody.  There  are  those  who 
want  to  put  their  finger  on  the  print  of  the  nails, 
and  these  are  not  the  least  worthy  amongst  the 
sons  of  men.  How  the  heart  cries  out  for  the  touch 
of  the  vanished  hand  and  the  sound  of  the  voice 
that  is  still !  Well,  I  am  no  spiritualist;  I  have  no 
knowledge  of  spiritualism  except  what  I  have  read 
and  heard  from  others;  I  have  a  profound  distrust 
of  most  of  the  so-called  evidence  for  spirit  return. 
But  when  friends  of  my  own,  of  unimpeachable 
probity,  like  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  speak  of  the  results 
of  long  and  painstaking  investigation  into  super- 
normal phenomena  as  yielding  something  ap- 
proaching to  demonstration  of  the  persistence  of 
intelligent  self-consciousness  after  the  change  called 
death,  one  cannot  but  give  weight  to  it.  Sir  Oliver 
is  a  master  in  the  felicitous  use  of  metaphor,  and 
many  must  have  been  impressed  by  one  expression 
which  fell  from  his  lips  during  his  address  to  the 
Psychical  Research  Society  a  week  or  two  ago.  He 
compared  the  labours  of  himself  and  his  friends  to 


THE    LIFE    BEYOND  305 

that  of  excavators  engaged  in  boring  a  tunnel 
through  a  mountain  mass  to  establish  communica- 
tion, if  possible,  between  two  territories ;  and  added 
that  operations  had  now  been  pushed  so  far  that  it 
seemed  as  though  they  could  faintly  hear  the  pick- 
axes of  their  comrades  who  were  working  from  the 
farther  side.  It  may  be  so;  I  devoutly  hope  it  is 
so.  Perhaps  the  day  is  not  so  very  far  distant 
when  it  will  be  as  little  possible  to  doubt  the  con- 
tinued existence  of  those  whom  we  have  hitherto 
mourned  as  dead  as  it  is  now  impossible  to  doubt 
the  existence  of  the  planet  Mars. 

Permit  me  to  ask  you  at  this  point  whether  you 
are  prepared  for  the  readjustment  in  the  religious 
point  of  view  which  must  inevitably  follow  from 
such  a  scientific  demonstration  of  a  future  life,  if 
it  ever  comes?  Already,  the  conventional  heaven 
and  hell  must  be  relegated  to  the  limbo  of  super- 
seded forms  of  thought.  The  only  reasonable  be- 
lief that  can  be  substituted  for  them  is  that  the  law 
of  cause  and  effect  must  hold  good  in  other  spheres 
than  this.  We  cannot  expect  to  escape  the  con- 
sequences of  our  follies,  or  to  reap  where  we  have 
not  sown.  This  is  no  individualistic  gospel,  for  it 
recognises  that  we  may  be  each  other's  burden- 
bearers,  and  that  the  nearer  we  draw  to  the  moral 
likeness  of  Christ  the  more  we  shall  wish  to  be 
such.  But  no  man  can  appropriate  the  character 
of  a  Christ  unless  he  has  grown  it.  Those  who 
love  him  may  suffer  with  him,  may  even  suffer  for 
him,  but  they  cannot  make  him  a  present  of  a 
Christ-like  soul  apart  from  any  effort  of  their  own. 
We  see  that  to  be  so  in  this  world;  why  should  it 
be  different  anywhere  else?    You  and  I  are  every 


3o6  THE    LIFE    BEYOND 

day  of  our  lives  bearing  burdens  for  other  people, 
or  having  ours  borne  for  us.  We  may  be  the  better 
for  it  in  both  cases,  but  we  never  dream  that  a 
noble  man  can  make  his  character  over  to  a  scoun- 
drel and  say  :  **  I  know  you  are  a  rascal ;  you  have 
been  a  scheming,  selfish  tyrant  to  your  fellows; 
you  have  been  covetous  and  hypocritical,  base  and 
sordid  in  your  aims;  but  I  am  willing  that  you 
should  have  as  a  deed  of  gift  all  that  I  know  of 
God  and  life,  and  all  that  I  feel  concerning  love 
and  truth."  One  man  might  be  quite  willing  to 
make  that  deed  of  gift,  and  another  to  benefit  by  it, 
but  it  could  not  be  done.  We  know  that  it  never 
is  done.  No  man  becomes  a  Christ  at  a  bound. 
From  what  we  know  of  life  here  it  is  therefore  fair 
to  assume  that  we  may  go  on  helping  one  another 
and  suffering  for  one  another  in  the  life  beyond 
the  grave,  but  we  shall  have  to  grow  our  individual 
spiritual  character  exactly  as  we  are  doing  now 
under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God. 
Where  we  have  failed  to  do  this  we  shall  have  to 
learn  the  mistake  and  start  afresh.  We  shall  not 
be  left  to  labour  and  suffer  alone.  Our  Master  and 
Lord  will  be  with  us  at  every  step  in  the  road,  and 
all  the  love  in  the  universe  will  be  on  our  side  in 
the  effort  to  reach  the  highest  of  all.  There  is 
nothing  to  fear  in  that  dim  unknown  unless  we 
have  been  living  in  the  outer  darkness  of  a  self- 
centred  life  here.  If  that  has  been  so,  we  shall  have 
to  find  out  that  it  was  never  worth  our  while.  We 
shall  have  to  renounce  the  false  ideal  and  turn  to  the 
true.  All  the  petty  vanities  and  conceits  which  are 
absorbing  so  much  of  our  energy  now  will  be  seen 
in  their  true  colours  then,  and  we  shall  despise  the 


THE    LIFE    BEYOND  307 

folly  that  led  us  to  prefer  them.  We  shall  see  our 
life  just  as  it  is,  with  no  possibility  of  self-deception 
about  it.  We  may  be  slow  to  acknowledge  that  we 
have  been  wrong,  but  if  so  we  shall  have  to  wait 
outside  the  gates  of  blessedness  until  a  better  spirit 
awakens  within  us.  There  will  be  no  one  to  fawn 
upon  and  flatter  us,  for  the  things  will  be  absent 
that  give  us  any  material  advantage  here.  Death 
will  strike  away  most  of  the  externals  which  deceive 
men  in  their  own  eyes  or  give  them  a  fictitious  pro- 
minence and  value  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  The 
miser  will  have  his  miser's  soul  but  not  his  hoarded 
gold.  The  sensualist  will  keep  his  cravings,  but 
not  the  means  of  satisfying  them.  The  coward  and 
the  oppressor  will  find  that  there  never  has  been 
any  gain  worth  sacrificing  a  fellow  man  for. 
Eternal  love  will  teach  them  these  things,  but  the 
lesson  may  begin  in  pain. 

One  thing  we  shall  all  have  to  learn,  and  that  is 
that  our  heaven  is  within  us  before  it  can  find  out- 
ward expression.  Even  in  this  world  that  is  true 
to  a  greater  extent  than  most  people  dream.  Once 
get  a  man  at  peace  with  God,  free  him  from  all  fear 
for  his  own  self-interest,  and  you  will  find  that  cir- 
cumstances have  very  little  power  either  to  make 
or  mar  his  happiness.  He  may  sorrow,  but  never 
as  those  without  hope.  In  the  world  to  come  we 
shall  find  our  heaven  on  our  appropriate  moral 
level ;  the  soul  and  its  environment  will  correspond 
in  a  fuller  degree  than  here.  The  richer  and  fuller 
the  love  within  us,  the  grander  and  wider  the  ex- 
pression it  will  find.  And  with  the  ascent  of  the 
soul  will  come  a  sweeter  perception  of  our  essential 
unity  with  all  mankind  and  a  greater  willingness  to 


3o8  THE    LIFE    BEYOND 

give  all  we  have  and  are  in  order  to  hasten  the 
perfect  realisation  of  that  unity.  It  will  be  the 
consummation  spoken  of  by  the  apostle  Paul :  All 
things  are  to  be  summed  up  in  Christ,  and  the 
kingdom  delivered  up  to  God  the  Father,  that  God 
may  be  all  in  all. 

In  conclusion  let  me  epitomise  the  matter  in  a 
few  sentences.  Nothing  worthy  to  live  shall  ever 
perish. 

And  though,  in  this  lean  age  forlorn, 

Too  many  a  voice  may  cry 
That  man  shall  have  no  after  morn, 

Not  yet  of  these  am  I. 
The  man  survives,  and  whatso'er 

He  wrought  of  good  or  brave 
Will  mould  him  through  the  cycle  year 

That  dawns  behind  the  grave. 

Because  Christ  lives  you  shall  live  also.  Earthly 
love  shall  find  its  fruition  in  the  world  which 
neither  death  nor  sin  can  enter.  Those  we  call 
dead  are  more  alive  than  ever,  and  if  they  ever 
loved  us  they  have  not  ceased  to  think  of  and 
pray  for  us.  The  meaning  of  life  is  clearer  to 
them  now,  and  probably  they  are  able  to  help  us 
by  their  prayers  on  our  behalf  in  a  far  greater 
measure  than  was  possible  to  them  in  the  prison- 
house  of  the  flesh.  The  universe  of  God,  visible 
and  invisible,  is  a  garment  woven  without  seam 
throughout.  "  In  my  Father's  house  are  many 
mansions,"  but  it  is  still  one  house,  the  temple  of 
the  living  God. 


Richard  Clay  6^  Sons^  Limited,  London  and  Bungay. 


Date  Due 

Mr  9     'm 

WrlC:^ 

Je  j  r*  '''n\ 

FAri--^': 

1^ 

^ 

